The Fourth of July is a time for cookouts and fireworks. But this year, some people said they were not in the mood to celebrate given the country’s current political climate. Congress narrowly passed the Trump administration’s budget Thursday that cuts funding for numerous food and health aid programs, including Medicaid. Former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt says things are not good, but the holiday is a time to remember that the past has involved far worse challenges, especially for African Americans and that the country is a work in progress. He talks to WFAE’s Gwendolyn Glenn.
Harvey B. Gantt: While I can understand the mood of a lot of people because this is a divided country at this moment, I'm always going to celebrate the Fourth of July because I still think America is the best place to live in the world. We're still in the process of trying to build a more perfect union and right now for a lot of people, including myself, we've got a lot of work to do because we found out that elections do have sometimes negative consequences. And as Black people, we've come a long way in this country from slavery to where we are today, to the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement in the '60s to the Reagan Revolution — which set us back a little bit — to Clinton, Obama, and now to Trump. And in each of those cases, we either moved forward or we moved backward — we being in many cases, the people of color. But I don't recall a time when we didn't keep moving.
Gwendolyn Glenn: Now you missed Biden. A lot of what's being rolled back by Trump are policies of the Biden administration, such as clean energy programs, and programs for those who are less fortunate. What are you most concerned about in terms of what the Trump administration is doing these days?
Gantt: Well, first of all, I give Biden a lot of credit for continuing on a path of progressivism to inclusiveness, to dealing with a very diverse country. He is a man who has tried to maintain the safety net for the poor in this country.
Glenn: Let's talk about SNAP, (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). It's a program that 42 million people depend on for food. Trump's budget just passed this week and SNAP is one of the programs that was hit hard. What are your thoughts in terms of the cuts there?
Gantt: I think it's almost immoral that we could have a Congress that decided to put at risk so many millions of people. The people who depend on that, and these aren't lazy people. These are people who need that support. I think it's wrong.
Glenn: And about 1.4 million people in North Carolina depend on SNAP.
Gantt: And when you think about why we did that — it was, in fact, to give a tax cut to the richest Americans. There is something immoral when we, in fact, deny support for food for folks who are on Medicaid. Millions are going to be finding themselves without health care.
Glenn: You mention Medicaid — big cuts there, and those cuts are going to affect individuals, but also rural hospitals.
Gantt: That's right, because rural hospitals depend on being able to serve a relatively poor population, And when you cut out the support that allows medical help to be paid for by Medicaid, you are absolutely hurting those hospitals. Many of these hospitals will close up. And folks in rural areas, in many cases, will have to take more than an hour to get to serious medical care.
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Glenn: The Trump administration has cut diversity, equity and inclusion programs. How are you feeling about the DEI cuts?
Gantt: Five years ago, the country got behind diversity, equity and inclusion. But somehow the political right started to say that diversity, equity and inclusion programs were not doing right by a large number of Americans. And I think it's a huge mistake.
It's a huge setback for this country — not only for Black and brown people — but I think for the country as a whole. And I'm hoping that in the next election, we will start to reverse some of that. All of these kinds of things are part of a program to wipe out the contributions, oftentimes of people of color. And I think that's a huge mistake.
Glenn: I think about what the late Congressman John Lewis said before his death — that he couldn’t believe 50 years later, we're still fighting for the right to vote. And a lot of that is happening in North Carolina with, you know, voter ID and different changes to laws here regarding voting.
Gantt: Certain parts of this country have been fighting for years to suppress the votes of African Americans and other people of color. We've been doing that for well over 100-some-odd years. And now we find ourselves still fighting a battle. And there are people who continue to fear the growing economic and political power of brown and Black people in this country. That's why I think Donald Trump has risen to power in this country.
Glenn: And so many people are saying, look at what's going on in Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court, and saying that the Democratic Party and Democrats in Congress are not doing enough.
Gantt: This is a split country. Right now, the "big, beautiful bill" passed with a two or three-vote majority.
Glenn: Which Congresswoman Alma Adams, of North Carolina, calls the "big, ugly bill."
Gantt: Any bill is ugly that gives advantages to the rich at the expense of poor people in this country.
Glenn: So, what will you do as these things continue?
Gantt: People like myself, we've been on that stage a long time. I don't intend to get back on it, but I do think that we have to do what our parents did. They pushed us forward to bring about change. I'm going to continue to advise.
We've got to be more serious and understand that we have tools that we didn't even have 30 or 40, or 50 years ago. The primary tool is the right to vote. Young people have to vote. Young people have to take positions of leadership. Folks have got to vote in 2026 if you want to change things.
Glenn: And, finally, I was talking to a friend and they were saying they heard a program on the news talking about the flag and the country's national anthem was being played. And they said, for them, they thought about the Black national anthem ["Lift Every Voice and Sing"] and the words and that said, "let us march on till victory is won." Again, getting back to the Fourth of July.
Gantt: I sing the national anthem and the Black national anthem. One of them, the founding of the country, is important. We are living in America, no matter the circumstances by which our ancestors came here. We have benefited from this great nation, and we have proven that America can do right only when we fight for our rights.
And so, I don't think there's anything wrong with singing the national anthem and the Black national anthem, that speaks to the aspirations of African Americans and other people of color.
This nation is going to be greater when we allow every citizen to live out their best dreams of what they can be in this country, which is why I don't understand why there is so much fear, F-E-A-R, on the part of a lot of folks in this country that would allow them to create almost a cult around the current president and the mean-spirited agenda that he's been putting forward.
