Gantt, Harvey 1943—

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Harvey Gantt 1943—

Architect, politician

In June of 1990, Harvey Gantt was chosen the North Carolina Democratic Party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate, earning the right to challenge the state’s Republican incumbent. The Democrat/ Republican match-up in this statewide election soon gained nationwide attention. For, not only was Gantt attempting to become the South’s first black senator since Reconstruction, he was also attempting to unseat the voice of conservative morality in the Senate, Jesse Helms.

Gantt’s liberal campaign, which stressed increased funding for social programs, decreased funding for defense, opposition to the death penalty, support for abortion rights, as well as tolerance of free expression and alternative lifestyles, drew backing from prominent blacks such as Bill Cosby and from groups adversely affected by Helms’s legislative record—artists, feminists, homosexuals, and civil libertarians. Political polls found the race close throughout most of the campaign season, but in the end, Gantt received just 47 percent of the vote and Helms returned to office for his third term.

Gantt had hoped to add his name to that of Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, the first African-American since Reconstruction to serve in the U.S. Senate (from 1967 to 1979). He began campaigning in April 1990 against three other Democratic hopefuls and won the right to face Michael F. Easley in a runoff by earning 38 percent of the vote in the May primary. He secured the Democratic candidacy with a strong showing in the June 5 runoff, polling 58 percent of the vote.

Once chosen to represent the Democrats, Gantt offered himself to the people of North Carolina as the candidate for the New South and characterized Helms as the representative of the Old South. He criticized Helms’s record on education and the environment; he also took issue with the Republican incumbent’s efforts to control the National Endowment for the Arts. He told Joseph Papp of Interview: “As for Helms and the NEA, I believe that people ought to be allowed to pursue their dreams in this country—more than any other place—without fear of persecution. I just don’t feel that Helms has the moral authority, given his own history, to begin to tell us what is right and wrong.”

At first Helms, who was occupied in Washington with

At a Glance…

Full name, Harvey Bernard Gantt; born January 14, 1943, In Charleston, SC; son of Christopher Columbus Gantt (a shipyard worker) and Wilhelmenia Gantt; married, wife’s name, Cindy; children: Sonja, Erika, Angela, Adam. Education: Attended Iowa State University, 1961-62; Clemson University, B.Arch., 1965; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M.A., 1970. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Baptist.

Architect with large firms in Charlotte, N.C., 1965-70; planner for Soul City, N.C., experimental community, 1970-71; Gantt-Huberman architectural firm, Charlotte, partner, 1971—; City of Charlotte, member of city council, 1974-79, council member and mayor pro tern, 1981-83, mayor, 1983-87; Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from North Carolina, 1990. Lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1970-72; visiting critic at Clemson University, 1972-73. Gantt has served on the U.S. Council of Mayors, as an uncommitted delegate to the 1984 Democratic Convention, and on the Democratic National Committee. Speaker to numerous organizations in the United States and abroad.

Awards: Citizen of the year, Charlotte NAACP, 1975 and 1984. Has received honorary degrees from Belmont Abbey College, Johnson C. Smith University, and Clemson University.

Addresses: Home —517 North Poplar St., Charlotte, N.C. 28202.

budget hearings, simply criticized Gantt for his stand on the issues, calling him a liberal out of step with the people of North Carolina. But, as election day grew closer and the polls continued to show Gantt even, or in some cases ahead of Helms, the campaign rhetoric heated up. Helms’s campaign ads began to accuse Gantt of unfairly profiting from a federal program that sold television stations to minorities and of supporting racial quotas in hiring practices. Gantt was able to respond to these and other attacks, but he was not able to counter the effect they had on some undecided voters.

Complicating the battle between the candidates was a controversy involving the two political parties. The Democrats claimed that the 150,000 post cards explaining voting regulations sent by the Republican Party to North Carolina voters were targeted at blacks in an attempt to frighten them away from the polls. The Republicans countered that the Democrats were trying to stir up a voter backlash against Helms. In the end, the contest between liberal and conservative issues became a contest about race and negative campaigning. Gantt polled 47 percent of the overall vote, and 54 percent of the under-30 vote, but he received only 35 percent of the white vote.

Harvey Bernard Gantt was born January 14, 1943, in Charleston, South Carolina, the historic Southern port city overlooking Fort Sumter where the Civil War had begun just over 80 years before. By the time Gantt was born, Charleston, like most of the South, had swung from slavery to Reconstruction, then back to segregation. As a teenager, Gantt took part in sit-ins to desegregate Charleston lunch counters and he graduated from all-black Burke High School.

Career as Architect

Wanting to pursue his ambition to become an architect, he chose to leave the segregated South for the Midwest, attending Iowa State University in 1961 and 1962. But, the young Southerner disliked Iowa’s harsh winters and he decided to return to South Carolina to complete his degree. To do so, however, he had to break the color barrier in the state’s educational institutions. After a lengthy court case, Gantt became Clemson University’s first black student in 1963. Two years later he graduated third in his architecture class.

Gantt chose to pursue his new career in Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city, and along with Atlanta one of the New South’s emerging centers. During the five years from 1965 to 1970, he worked as an architect for large firms in the city and also completed a master’s degree in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1970 and 1971, Gantt worked with civil rights activist Floyd B. McKissick as a planner for Soul City, North Carolina, an experimental community planned for a rural site north of Durham. After leaving the Soul City project, he returned to Charlotte to launch his own architectural firm along with Jeffrey Huberman. Since 1971, the firm has handled numerous building projects in and around the city.

The young architect’s political career began in 1974 when he was appointed to the Charlotte City Council to fill the seat vacated by Fred Alexander, the council’s only black member. Once on the council, Gantt urged the city leaders to reform the method of electing council members in order to give a greater voice to minority voters. Under the reform, instead of having citywide contests for every seat, some were set aside for election by district. In his term as an appointed member of council, Gantt earned enough support from city voters to be elected to one of the city-wide seats in 1975. In 1979, his service was interrupted when he lost in a bid to become the Democratic candidate for mayor of Charlotte. He regained his city-wide council seat in the 1981 election.

Elected Mayor of Charlotte

Two years later, having been chosen the Democratic candidate for mayor, Gantt was elected Charlotte’s mayor. He was the city’s first black mayor, having won 52 percent of the overall vote and 36 percent of the white vote. It was a historic event for this Southern metropolis, but Gantt and his white opponent had both avoided raising the issue of race, and Gantt had refused to enlist the support of national black leaders. The city had, in Gantt’s view, shown the spirit of the New South. He was quoted by Ron Martz in the Atlanta Journal: “It is sensing that spirit that led me to dream and believe that I could run for the city’s highest office and expect to be judged by my character, my competence and my understanding of the critical issues and nothing more.”

In his two terms, Gantt faced the problems common to the mayor of a city experiencing growing pains. He struggled to raise the revenue necessary to pay for $200 million worth of road projects not funded by the state while at the same time easing property taxes. His tax plans drew criticism from some on the city council. He worked to improve the city’s relationship with surrounding Mecklenburg County, to find summer jobs for area youth, to preserve neighborhoods, and to renew the city center. Even so, his black constituents complained that there was not enough attention paid to their issues.

To maintain the city’s economic growth, he lobbied at home and abroad to lure industry and investment. He was also involved in securing a National Basketball Association franchise, the Charlotte Hornets, for the city. But he battled the council over the location of the team’s coliseum. Gantt’s Republican opponent in the 1987 election, Suellen Myrick, focused on two of the city’s growing pains—traffic and taxes—and surprised the incumbent, beating him by approximately one thousand votes.

Senate Campaign

Gantt rebounded from this defeat to make a strong showing in his 1990 campaign for the U.S. Senate. Although he lost, in the process he gained attention and respect, both in North Carolina and across the nation. His name has been raised in connection with future campaigns for senator or governor. He is well regarded within the Democratic Party and may again be tapped to serve on the national committee to help plan its presidential bid for 1992.

Although some analysts have characterized Gantt as a public servant who lacks the hard edge of a politician, he maintains that he shares the motivation of all who work in politics. He once told J. A. C. Dunn of the Winston-Salem Journal, “I like [politics] for all the things that normal human beings like—the power, the potential… to do some good. Politics, it immediately became clear to me, was the one way to do things easier, to be at the table, to stir the soup a little bit yourself.”