Black Voices Rise Against Charlotte’s Transit Tax
In a city where generational wealth is already under siege and Black neighborhoods are vanishing beneath the boot of gentrification, a powerful group of community leaders and cultural icons are stepping forward with a unified message: Vote NO on the proposed transportation sales tax.
This week, a powerful signal was sent from some of the Queen City’s most recognizable voices. Community Advocate No Limit Larry, comedians and media personalities Tone X and BJ Murphy, and current community affairs host and former Charlotte mayor Patrick Cannon have all made their position crystal clear: they are standing with the people, not the political machine, in our NO’alition.
This Isn't Just About a Penny
Supporters of the tax like to say it’s “just a one-cent increase.” But anyone who’s lived on the economic margins in Charlotte knows better. A one-cent sales tax increase on top of existing county and state taxes means a 14% spike in the overall local sales tax rate, a regressive tax that hits hardest where it hurts most: on groceries, clothes, school supplies, and basic necessities.
For the Black and Brown families already displaced from neighborhoods like Cherry, Wilmore, and Washington Heights, this isn’t some policy abstraction, it’s a continuation of the same story. Tax increases that promise transit dreams but deliver construction contracts for developers and crumbs for the communities footing the bill; it’s urban renewal 2.0…and this time it will be on steroids.
What the Flyers Don’t Say
The campaign pushing this tax has plastered smiling faces and glossy renderings all over Charlotte, but what they don’t show is what happens next. Decades of empty promises and broken planning deals have already hollowed out minority-owned business corridors. Try asking West End merchants how long they waited for streetcar ridership to deliver foot traffic that never came.
There is no serious plan to protect existing minority-owned businesses from being priced out by speculative land grabs once rail lines inch toward development zones. There is no economic equity agreement. No racial impact study. Just a promise of “regional mobility”; without even basic guarantees that the people paying the tax will be the ones hired to build or benefit from what’s built.
A Cross-Section of Conscience
That’s why it matters that this “NO’alition” spans not only different industries, but different political ideologies, income brackets, and life experiences. When No Limit Larry speaks, his followers don’t hear policy, they hear reality. When Tone X or BJ Murphy bring the message to church halls and barbershops, it resonates. And when Patrick Cannon, once a symbol of Charlotte’s political rise, says this deal isn’t right, people pause and take heed to vote against the referendum.
These aren’t performative endorsements or partisan soundbites. These are leaders who live in Charlotte, love Charlotte, and have watched Charlotte make the same mistakes over and over, paving roads to nowhere with tax dollars extracted from the very people being pushed out.
No Is a Complete Sentence
The NO’alition isn’t just against the tax, it’s for something better. Real oversight. Real accountability. Real investment in people, not just concrete. If the City of Charlotte wants to raise $25 billion, it should start by opening the books and giving communities a real seat at the table, not just a postcard in the mail and a photo-op ribbon cutting.
As the early voting window opens on October 16th, and runs through November 1st, culminating in Election Day on November 4th, voters across Mecklenburg County have a chance to say something powerful: The more you know, the more you’re NO.