Harvey Gantt is an American architect, politician, and civil rights pioneer who became the first African American student at Clemson University and Charlotte’s first Black mayor. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, he sued to gain admission to Clemson in 1963, graduating with an architecture degree in 1965 before earning a master’s in city planning from MIT in 1970. He went on to co-found an architectural firm and serve two terms as the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, from 1983 to 1987.