It’s amazing how we miss clear Biblical teaching:

Never oppress the poor or pass laws with the motive of crushing the weak. (Proverbs 22.22, TPT)

Yet our country has a sordid history of such laws, many of them passed by people who were in church on Sunday.

I just read the inspiring story of Harvey Gantt, the first black student at Clemson University, my alma mater. Harvey transferred from Iowa State University as an architecture major, starting in January 1963. Why? He was from South Carolina and didn’t like the Iowa cold! Harvey was admitted only after a lawsuit.

I began my freshman year in September 1964. I didn’t need a lawsuit. My application was accepted immediately. So was Harvey’s…until they found out he was black. Because of Harvey’s trail-blazing efforts, my class contained the first black freshman. And the University President told us all on day 1, “There will be no problems at Clemson University.” And there weren’t. But there were difficulties Harvey had to overcome after graduation:

After college, 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.

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.

The project was supported by President Richard Nixon at the time but didn’t get the support of North Carolina senators, and McKissick struggled to get funding. On the upside, Gantt says, “It helped me to see what it might take to design the ideal environment.”Great minds often think alike. In 1971, Gantt and Jeffrey Huberman founded Charlotte’s first racially integrated architecture firm — Gantt Huberman Architects. – From A Better Day by Sandra Parker in The Clemson World, September 2021

Harvey ended up in government, serving two terms as mayor of Charlotte, NC. He ran unsuccessfully for Senate against long-time incumbent Jesse Helms.

“I got in the race as an underdog,” Gantt says. “Most 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.”

Although he lost, the Senate race heightened Gantt’s visibility nationwide, and he was subsequently asked to chair the National Capitol Planning Commission under President Bill Clinton’s administration. The commission provides planning guidance for federal land and buildings in the District of Columbia and surrounding regions where government facilities are located.“

It was quite an honor to be a part of that,” says Gantt, “and 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.” – Sandra Parker

Harvey and I have a lot in common. We’ve been married over 50 years, and we each have four children. The Gantts have nine grandchildren to our eight. We share the same faith:

“Optimism isn’t something you can buy or cash in at the lottery counter,” Gantt explains. “I 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’ve 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.” – Sandra Parker

What we don’t have in common is that he has accomplished way more than I have, and he did it against formidable odds. As has been said, “Many white people were born on third base, and we think we’ve hit a triple.” I like that while Harvey was certainly an advocate for civil rights, he worked hard in a challenging profession. The skyline of Charlotte bears witness to his many successful projects. There are buildings named for him at Clemson, the school he had to file a lawsuit to get into.

If you are uniquely gifted in your work, you will rise and be promoted. You won’t be held back—you’ll stand before kings! (Proverbs 22.29, TPT)