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By Sandra Parker<\/b>
\nPhotography provided by the City of Charlotte Public Service and Information
\n<\/b>and the Clemson Libraries\u2019 Special Collection and Archives<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div><\/p>\n
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Harvey Gantt\u2019s life has been a journey of trying to bring about a brighter future<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> As Harvey Gantt was growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, he heard his father talk about \u201ca better day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He began attending local NAACP meetings <\/span>with his father and learned about the efforts for civil rights and ending disparities that existed in the segregation-era South. Glimmers of that \u201cbetter day\u201d were becoming more apparent when the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court (in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka) ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional.<\/span><\/p>\n With his parents as role models, Harvey Gantt became an active participant in bringing that better day into existence.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> A Part of History<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Every story has a beginning, <\/span>as every superhero has an origin story. Harvey Gantt\u2019s story began in 1943. He is the oldest of Christopher and Wilhelmina Gantt\u2019s five children, and his parents believed strongly in hard work, honesty, integrity, education and treating others as they wanted to be treated.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw by example the kind of life they wanted us to lead and their vision for us to get an education and to do well,\u201d Gantt explains. \u201cWhat was remarkable about it \u2014 I don\u2019t think my sisters and I appreciated that example until we got to junior high or high school \u2014 was that we realized that neither one of our parents had a high school diploma.\u201d<\/p>\n Gantt was active in church and sang in the church choir, and in junior and senior high school choirs. He played baseball and made his way up the ranks in Boy Scouts.<\/p>\n During Gantt\u2019s senior year of high school, the Greensboro Four sat down at a Woolworth\u2019s lunch counter. Gantt and others who had formed a local NAACP Youth Council were inspired to take a stand. They formulated a plan of action to take place a month before graduation in 1960. Twenty-seven students \u2014 including Gantt \u2014 sat down at a lunch counter at an S.H. Kress & Co. five-and-dime store in Charleston.<\/p>\n As followers of the nonviolent movement led by Martin Luther King Jr., the students had pledged not to respond or retaliate if they were met with violence. But they were prepared for the worst.<\/p>\n \u201cThe participants had to be prepared to withstand the insults or ketchup being poured over our heads,\u201d Gantt explains, \u201cbut as 17-year-olds, we were excited to participate. We were prepared to ask for a hot dog and a drink and wait to be served, knowing that the attendants would say no, and we would just sit.\u201d<\/p>\n After they were refused service, the students were taken in by police and locked in a courtroom until their parents could pick them up.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rest is history,\u201d Gantt reflects. \u201cThe Supreme Court ultimately decided that we were not trespassing, and that was one of many sit-ins across the South that helped bring segregation at lunch counters to an end. It was really the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, but the sit-ins led up to that, and I\u2019m so proud to have been a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> [Gantt’s] parents believed strongly in hard work, honesty, integrity, education and treating others as they wanted to be treated.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Child of the South<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n After graduating second in his class<\/span> from Burke High School, Gantt attended Iowa State University to study architecture. After a year of study, he returned home and sued for admission to the racially segregated Clemson University. The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Clemson to admit him, and in January 1963, Gantt became the first African American student to attend Clemson.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew that, eventually, I would get in,\u201d says Gantt. \u201cThe law was on our side; morality was on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n The initial application response was positive; Gantt was simply a student trying to return to his home state. But it wasn\u2019t until he sent his transcript from Burke High School that they realized he was African American. After five unanswered applications, Gantt resorted to a lawsuit. Some of his Iowa State classmates wondered why he would go to the trouble.<\/p>\n His answer was simple: \u201cAside from the cold weather, I was just too far away from home. I was just a child of the South. I wanted to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy experience at Clemson was not as daunting as some would want to make it seem,\u201d Gantt continues. \u201cAside from a few students who tried to make me uncomfortable, most people just ignored me. I had great friends in the School of Architecture, probably because I spent 80 percent of my time there. I got good grades; the professors treated me fairly. I studied hard; that\u2019s what I did at Iowa. I didn\u2019t see any reason to change the pattern at Clemson.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> If you talk to Gantt about his college days, there are some aspects that stand out as life-altering, in the best way possible.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that made Clemson special was number 1, I got to know the woman I have been married to for more than half a century \u2014 Lucinda.\u201d<\/p>\n Harvey and Lucinda Gantt met during the summer when he was speaking to a group of high school students in Columbia who were interested in attending Clemson and the University of South Carolina.<\/p>\n The next semester, Lucinda Brawley enrolled at Clemson, becoming the second African American student and the first African American woman. Gantt formally met Lucinda at her dormitory and escorted her to the dining hall. The two became friends and after a couple of months went on their first date to see a movie. The friendship became a romance, and they were wed in October 1964 in Hopkins, South Carolina. The couple then lived in a small off-campus house rented to them by friends. \u201cThere were classes during the day, and we saw each other in the evening,\u201d Gantt says. He describes his wife as a whiz at math while he favored the creative and artistic path.<\/p>\n Gantt\u2019s Clemson days also were boosted by the warmth of the neighboring community. \u201cWhile at Clemson, I met the Clemson African American community, the people who were taking care of students for generations,\u201d Gantt says. \u201cThey really surrounded me with the kind of friendship and support that made going to school very bearable. I still remember some of the good times I had at Golden View Baptist Church. I met some great people in Clemson, the Reid and Gantt families, and in Seneca, the Hill, Pinckney and Battle families. Those families really befriended me, and the African American community made it feel like home.\u201d<\/p>\n Gantt received his B.A. in architecture from Clemson with honors in 1965. Lucinda completed her college career in applied mathematics with a B.A. at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and later continued her education by earning a B.S. in accounting. She has worked for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System; Peat, Marwick, Mitchell; and FDY. She retired her professional career after serving years as business manager of East Towne Manor, an assisted-living facility.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Photo by Etoyle Dorn<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> In 1971, Gantt and Jeffrey Huberman founded Charlotte\u2019s first racially integrated architecture firm \u2014 Gantt Huberman Architects. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> A Better Way<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n After college, <\/span>no architectural firms in South Carolina would even interview Gantt, but he had several interviews with Atlanta and Charlotte companies. Charlotte seemed like a good place to settle his growing family. So, the Gantts spent three years in Charlotte while he honed his craft and obtained his license as a professional architect. He then accepted a fellowship to study city planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n In 1970 after graduating from MIT, Gantt moved back south and began teaching part time at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while also working with civil rights leader Floyd McKissick on an aspirational program called Soul City, a planned community designed in rural North Carolina (primarily by Black architects and planners). The community focused on attracting residents, businesses and people of all races and economic levels.<\/p>\n The project was supported by President Richard Nixon at the time but didn\u2019t get the support of North Carolina senators, and McKissick struggled to get funding. On the upside, Gantt says, \u201cIt helped me to see what it might take to design the ideal environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Great minds often think alike. In 1971, Gantt and Jeffrey Huberman founded Charlotte\u2019s first racially integrated architecture firm \u2014 Gantt Huberman Architects. Gantt and Huberman had previously worked together when Gantt spent his first three years in Charlotte. They had toyed with the idea of creating a diverse firm in North Carolina that could employ the best of both worlds.<\/p>\n Gantt recalls their planning: \u201cWe thought, \u2018What if we had a Black and white firm and then went after work based on our talents? Wouldn\u2019t that be a better way to approach architecture?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The firm was a success, and the skyline of Charlotte bears witness to that. Gantt got the chance to influence both the public and private sectors, including redesigning his high school (Burke High School) and designing the church he attends in Charlotte, a Charlotte transportation center that upgraded the city\u2019s quality of public transportation, and educational facilities, such as libraries and college and university projects around the Carolinas. In 2006, Gantt Huberman Architects received the AIA North Carolina Firm Award, the highest honor the organization can bestow upon a firm.<\/p>\n Gantt has been recognized for his individual accomplishments as well. He was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He received the AIANC Award of Excellence in Architecture in 1981, the Lifetime Achievement Award from Leadership Charlotte in 2006 and the AIA\u2019s Whitney M. Young Jr. Award for social activism and responsibility in 2013. In 2017, Gantt received AIA North Carolina\u2019s F. Carter Williams Gold Medal.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Like a Duck Takes to Water<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n If a person\u2019s goal in life<\/span> is improving the community, it is only natural, for many, that politics is next. Gantt says he ended up on the Charlotte City Council by accident in 1974, accepting an appointment by the council to fill a vacancy for a one-year term.<\/p>\n \u201cI took to it like a duck takes to water,\u201d he says. \u201cI enjoyed making decisions that I thought benefited a lot of people. I thought it was a great complement to my architectural career because architects have to assemble materials and put together good structures. City Council members and people who serve in public office have to take into account all the needs of the community and try to come up with solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n After three terms on the Charlotte City Council, in 1979, Gantt unsuccessfully ran for mayor. In 1983, however, he was elected as Charlotte\u2019s first African American mayor, where he served for two terms.<\/p>\n Though he lost his third-term race, Gantt says, \u201cThe experience of working to see people get improvements in their lives \u2014 to solidify opportunities for people by putting good things in poor neighborhoods to help enhance the neighborhood, by providing services that made the poor more mobile around the city \u2014 all of those things were quite rewarding, and they complemented the architectural career that I was leading.\u201d<\/p>\n As mayor, he helped set up the first public arts commission in Charlotte and establish a program to allocate public arts for new projects, such as parks and buildings. He also served on the board of the city\u2019s Afro-American Cultural Center, making its facility improvements a priority.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a place that told the story of the cultural history of African Americans in Charlotte and promoted the arts among African American artists,\u201d he says. After Gantt left public office, a brand-new facility was erected, named the Harvey B. Gantt Center for Arts and Culture in his honor.<\/p>\n In 1990, Gantt lost in a contentious race for the U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina. The race proved to be a tight one that garnered broad attention outside of North Carolina, which included the endorsement of Barack Obama, then a 29-year-old Harvard law student.<\/p>\n \u201cI got in the race as an underdog,\u201d Gantt says. \u201cMost people thought it was impossible for me to win against someone as popular as incumbent Jesse Helms because I was a Clemson alumnus, an African American and a person who was not originally from North Carolina. We took on the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Although he lost, the Senate race heightened Gantt\u2019s visibility nationwide, and he was subsequently asked to chair the National Capitol Planning Commission under President Bill Clinton\u2019s administration. The commission provides planning guidance for federal land and buildings in the District of Columbia and surrounding regions where government facilities are located.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was quite an honor to be a part of that,\u201d says Gantt, \u201cand do some of the planning necessary for a number of facilities, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the World War II Memorial and the Washington Convention Center.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Celebrating Progress<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019ve been on Clemson\u2019s campus<\/span> lately, you might have walked on the street that bears Harvey Gantt\u2019s name or attended events sponsored by the Harvey and Lucinda Gantt Multicultural Center, a part of the Division of Inclusion and Equity, where the Gantts have spent hours meeting with and inspiring Clemson students. Gantt also has encouraged the Harvey B. Gantt Scholars, recipients of the scholarship created by the Clemson Black Alumni Council in 1988 to recruit and retain African American students.<\/p>\n In 2012, Gantt was the University\u2019s Victor Hurst Convocation keynote speaker for the start of the academic year, marking the 50th anniversary of his entry as the first African American student.<\/p>\n Over the years, Gantt has served and volunteered for his alma mater. He has been a visiting lecturer and has held various posts with the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities. He has served on the President\u2019s Advisory Board. The University bestowed on him an honorary doctorate in humanities.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> \u201cThere is not much I have done over the past almost 57 years without my wife by my side, or without me by her side in the things in which she is involved. We are two peas in a pod.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> The Next Generation<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Harvey Gantt <\/span>has spent a lifetime encouraging, engaging and mentoring professionals and students from kindergarten to college. After more than 50 years, he is moving away from the limelight.<\/p>\n \u201cI decided when I retired from the practice of architecture that I needed to get off the stage,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are people I spoke to as kids who are now adults, moving into leadership roles. I love standing in the wings and applauding and pushing forward those folks who are our leaders of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n Gantt has lived an optimistic life.<\/p>\n \u201cOptimism isn\u2019t something you can buy or cash in at the lottery counter,\u201d Gantt explains. \u201cI have been blessed to have had a good life. I have been blessed with a soulmate who has been with me for almost 57 years. I have four great children and nine wonderful grandchildren. What you see from me is an inner glow because I\u2019ve tried to do right. This optimism is not exclusively mine. People find this by a belief in something bigger than themselves. In my case, that would be God and Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n People find optimism by passing on values, says Gantt, and seeing his children and grandchildren prosper is a very special experience. \u201cWhen I see my grandchild graduating with a master\u2019s degree, I remember when I used to hold them almost in the palm of my hands as babies. I know in these instances something good did catch, and they must pass this on to their children.\u201d<\/p>\n He is optimistic about the country\u2019s future. \u201cI think this is a seminal point in history, much as it was in 1964 and 1965.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Do Right<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n After his retirement in 2015, <\/span>Gantt and his wife went on a month-long trip to Australia and New Zealand. He described it as a great time to reflect before returning to his new life. Now, Gantt has more time to sing in the church choir. He plays golf and tennis. He reads a lot. He enjoys good conversations, those without computer screens involved. He is happy to relax, at least a little, and spend time with family.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is not much I have done over the past almost 57 years without my wife by my side, or without me by her side in the things in which she is involved. We are two peas in a pod.\u201d<\/p>\n With his occasional input from the sidelines, Harvey Gantt is continuing to leave a legacy of which his parents would be proud and that his children can carry on, demonstrating that it\u2019s possible to make a difference by helping others along the way.<\/p>\n Or in his own words, \u201cWe can make a difference by trying to do right.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Sandra Parker<\/b> is a freelance writer living in Seneca, S.C.,
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\nand a former writer\/editor in University Relations at Clemson.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/p><\/div>
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