Michael Graff
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Founder, The Charlotte Optimist (launching spring 2025). Most recent: Southern bureau chief, Axios. Also: Co-author, THE VOTE COLLECTORS.
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Articles by Michael Graff
The Many Jim Nobles
The squatters have been here. Jim Noble is walking us through the 13 acres off of Freedom Drive, out west where the road is still two lanes, where he wants to build 32 houses for people who have nowhere to live, when he hears a sign of trouble. “What’s that? Water? You hear that?” He looks to his right and sees water gushing from the foundation of one of the three houses still standing on the property.
’20 years is like 20 minutes’: What Chicago can teach Charlotte in a hurry
On a misty morning 750 miles from home, my walk is haphazard. I start by finding water, because water always goes somewhere, then follow it toward the fuzzy, gray sunrise. The street dead-ends at an elevated pocket neighborhood, where a sidewalk steers to a pocket park that cascades down a 50-foot slope, dumping me out under a highway, and into the lakefront park.
Charlotte’s Optimism Gap
A few weeks ago a reader responded to my column on the recent school board mess with a reasonable assessment on their dwindling hope for our city. They said they saw institutions that aren’t functioning properly — specifically naming the school board, city council, and judicial system — and wondered if I might consider changing this publication’s name to the Charlotte Realist.
They built this city, and they’re still going
They were dominant newsmakers of their time who shaped the city as we know it today. Collectively, this year’s Southminster 8 Over 80: Lifetime of Purpose winners built museums, changed laws, integrated schools, balanced national budgets, grew amusement parks, led media, shaped higher ed, sat as mayor, and pastored to all. But they’re all more than their resumes. They’ve loved, lost, traveled, and continued to contribute to the city they love. Their collective wisdom is vast. Their hearts are, too.
The baton’s been passed: The state of aging in Charlotte
The jewelry was in the old woman’s freezer. When she couldn’t find it, she called her son in a fit. He was a well-known Charlotte businessman, and he rang the agency in charge of her care during her slide into dementia. “We’ve got a problem,” the son said. Don Olin was shaken. He and his wife, Sally, founded their caregiving business mostly to help vulnerable people avoid situations like this. Don’s mother had fallen in her upstate New York home and spent 24 hours on the floor before anyone knew.
A love letter to CMS teachers and employees
Dear teachers and CMS employees, As parents of CMS students and longtime education advocates, we are watching. We’ve seen the headlines. We’ve seen the clips. And we are distraught by the system’s leadership turmoil, the investigations, the financial irregularities, the dismantling of governance and compliance, and now the firing of Superintendent Crystal Hill. We see a school board divided by politics and conflict, and we’ve watched trust in district leadership plummet.
Column: ‘Our children are watching’
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center has served as a theater for many shameful productions in its nearly 40 years. Few, if any, top last night’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools meeting.
It’s been 10 years since Keith Scott, and the bullet that missed us
The shooter ran past my left shoulder at six seconds after 8:30 p.m. He looked like any of the dozens of us fleeing the scrambled scene in front of the Omni Hotel on September 21, 2016, after the bang. On the sidewalk behind me, 26-year-old Justin Carr, a Charlotte native and Panthers fanatic whose girlfriend was eight months pregnant with their first child, was bleeding to death.
What West Boulevard is Worth
Rickey Hall is no longer next to me. We’re walking through a shopping center that Harris Teeter abandoned a half-century ago, when housing projects went up and white residents moved out. A police security camera serenades us with piercing beeps. Cars and big rigs growl along West Boulevard, all in a hurry to zoom through a neighborhood that’s been Rickey’s home for 69 years. He calls this the gateway to the world. I’ve come here so he can walk me through all of it.
Charlotte’s other lost films
Long before he was a Broadway legend, Charles Randolph-Wright was a boy who couldn’t get into Charlotte’s finest theater. The Carolina Theatre landed all the major titles in the 1950s and 1960s, crowds lining Tryon Street for new releases. But Black patrons were prohibited until 1963, and even then, Charles’ mother refused to take him.
Communication is everything. Who in Charlotte can afford it? And who can afford to do it badly?
Back in 2013, I had an assignment to imagine what life in Charlotte will look like in 2058. I spent months interviewing planners, sociologists, academics, and interior designers, and wrote my best predictions for the future. During my research, I watched the 2011 documentary Urbanized, which opens with a line from former New York City planning director Amanda Burden: “Urban design is really the language of the city.
First Person: Discovery Place’s Dr. Nikki Hill, on what Charlotte youth want
With conversations about “teen takeovers” and curfews swirling as the new school year begins this week, Discovery Place wants to play a larger role in creating more opportunities for youth. This week, the organization will launch a series of programs for sixth through 12th graders. The “Next Gen Collective,” as they’re calling it, includes: Explorers (grades 6–12), beginning September 19, helps beginners “spark curiosity” through camps and monthly workshops.
Former Border Patrol chief visits bakery where people protested Border Patrol, films it
Note: An early version of this story appeared in the Charlotte Optimist’s weekly newsletter, published at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday August 23. This version has been updated with a reply from Bovino. Gregory Bovino, the former U.S. Border Patrol official who led last November’s “Charlotte’s Web” immigration operation, made an unannounced stop at Manolo’s Bakery Sunday night around 5:30, along with a videographer who documented the interaction between him and bakery owner Manolo Betancur.
'It's Been Real': Why Queen City Nerve Closed
Ryan Pitkin will turn 40 in about a week, and the publication he defined now rests in peace. Local media doesn’t need another wake. Queen City Nerve wouldn’t want you to go through the trouble of clipping on a tie anyway. But when the alternative, authority-challenging outlet closed last week — eight years after launching from the ashes of its predecessor, Creative Loafing — it marked one of those subtle generational shifts in how the city talks about itself, and who talks about it.
The CMS Superintendent drama is nothing and everything all at once
I caught myself gossiping about our school board to a philosopher on Wednesday morning. “Our superintendent was suspended for eight weeks this summer without anybody knowing why!” I launched, talking like someone who needs a local news recovery program. Mark Nepo tilted his head. He’s written more than two dozen books, including the No. 1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Awakening, which Oprah named one of her favorite things. We were meeting to discuss an entirely different subject.
Born on Rock: How Rock Hill turned the failed Panthers project into a comeback for the ages
The son of a woman who flew across the Atlantic in the Hindenburg bursts into the building where he’s reinventing the textile industry in the Carolinas. “Where are they?” Derick Close says, as if he’s looking for vandals. He’s just looking for me and a photographer. We’d arranged to meet at Springs Creative, the 139-year-old family business he runs in Rock Hill, but Close is a few minutes late and needs to make up time.
Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth in Charlotte
Photos by Logan, words by Michael At bedtime, my 6-year-old has been asking me to tell him stories from “the olden days.” One night he asked if, in the olden days, we had “TELEphones.” The “tele,” in his mind, distinguishes it from the ones we carry in our pockets today.
Let’s Build a Bridge: The Man Trying to Rebuild Trust in Charlotte
The poet’s dreaming up metaphors. The songwriter’s scribbling in a notebook. The harpist is making rain sounds on his strings. The producer is tapping the keyboard and capturing it all. They’re creating a song for Charlotte, tentatively called “Together We Build.” The sax player’s here, too, but he forgot his sax today, so he’s bringing the laughs. “It gives me Free Willy feelings,” Harvey Cummings says after hearing the initial hook.
Road to Hire delivers a better sort of teen takeover in Charlotte
She took the stage Thursday with Petey Pablo’s “Raise Up” bopping as her walkup song, and 450 teenagers and young adults followed her lead, rising to their feet, waving pompoms and clacking clappers. “Big energy, big energy,” Monique Perry-Graves opened. “What’s up, y’all?!?” They were here to celebrate completing an intense summer-learning program with Road to Hire, the nonprofit organization Perry-Graves leads as CEO.
“The Rise and Reckoning” of Pat McCrory, Now In One New Book
The day after he was elected mayor in 1995, Pat McCrory took his dying father up to the top of the government center. Rollin “Mac” McCrory had been one of the most important figures in Pat’s story, and even though lymphoma would take his life two weeks later, Mac wanted to see how far his son had risen. Former CMPD detective Garry McFadden, who’s now Mecklenburg’s sheriff, opened the doors and wheeled Mac to the windows overlooking the city.
Pick Your Own Cup at The Pauline
You’re a peaceful person. So easygoing and chill, people have told you since you were a kid. Maybe you even grew up to write a newsletter rooted in gratitude and optimism. But now it’s 8:15 this past Thursday morning, and you’re late to daycare dropoff for your youngest kid, which’ll certainly make you even later to your other kid’s summer camp — Wait, where even is camp this week? Basketball at the church, or soccer at the college, or flame-throwing in a field? Look, I just need an address.
The Six Months That Reshaped Charlotte’s City Hall
Government meetings typically aren’t a photographer’s dream assignment. People sitting around a table in business attire, talking for three and four hours on end about motions and substitute motions behind a brown dais, aren’t as visually gripping as, say, sunrises with a football team or passionate protests. But Logan Cyrus can find humanity in strange places.
Get Used to It, Kid
I don’t have a LaMelo Ball T-shirt, thankfully. I do, however, have one that reads“Why Not?” It’s technically a reference to the 1989 Baltimore Orioles, who came within an eyelash of making the playoffs despite being one of the worst teams in baseball history the year before. That city branded that remarkable turnaround summer the “Why Not!?” season. Maybe we need “Why Not?” shirts for Charlotte in 2026. Why not swap out a mayor? Why not kill a highway?
They could’ve chosen more chaos. They didn’t.
I tiptoed into the house again last night, hoping to avoid waking my family after another late-night tryst with our city council. My mind, as usual, went straight to the chocolate ice cream in the freezer. Life is full of choices between sweet desires and best interests. But this time I came home with a different feeling — I wasn’t tense.
How Gene Woods Runs
“CODE ORANGE!” The announcement over the hospital’s intercom sounded like a drill to Gene Woods, until, “THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” which sounds like a good start to a network drama, except this was September 11, 2001. Woods was in his fourth day as chief operating officer at Medstar’s Washington Hospital Center in the nation’s capital. The code orange interrupted his orientation session, where he’d just learned that “code orange” meant to implement disaster preparedness protocols.
The End of Charlotte’s Opportunity Era Is the Beginning of Another
Sherri Chisholm slid a raspberry muffin across the table and handed me a plastic knife. We were in a coffee shop that employs homeless people, inside the Innovation Barn, a recycling lab that claims to turn “waste into wonder.” We were here to talk about Charlotte’s most important civic initiative in generations — a decade-long, billion-dollar investment in economic mobility and capital-o Opportunity — and how the organization at the center of it is closing up shop.
The Long Middle - The Charlotte Optimist
She woke up on the first day of her favorite month and wept. June used to be International Eleanor Month. Her birthday is smack in the middle, and it was when she and her kids would get their first taste of watermelon and first smell of saltwater. But last Monday, when Eleanor Shell’s calendar flipped, all she could think about was that June morning from two years ago, and what it had taken from her. On June 12, 2024, Shell started the day with a doctor’s appointment for her 7-month-old daughter.
Five Bucks and a Laptop
The Optimist doesn’t have a true office, and my home’s not big enough for two kids and a home office — and I’m required to keep the kids. That means I’m a working nomad, pulling up all over town with a laptop. I usually try to pick places that fit the mood of the story I’m working on, or match the energy I want around me in the moment. We don’t really do “best this” or “top that” lists, but this is one area where I thought I could be helpful.
Estella Patterson Knows Who To Call
Estella Patterson didn’t need more trouble. She’d returned to Charlotte this past December to become our police chief after four years as Raleigh’s, and her schedule filled up like a Tetris board. Reporters wanted to ask her about being Charlotte’s first woman chief. Her employees wanted a strategy to fill a 200-officer staffing shortage. The business community wanted her ideas for addressing crime in uptown. And the city’s immigrant corridors were shaken by November’s erratic border patrol raids.
Long Walk Home for Charlotte
“Truth, compassion, humanity, thoughtfulness, morality, true strength, and decency — don’t let anybody tell you that these things don’t matter anymore, because they do.” -Bruce Springsteen, Pittsburgh, May 19, 2026 I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see him this way. Bruce Springsteen has been part of my life since my mom first spun the new Born in the USA record when I was four years old in 1984.
Six Hands: The Night Charlotte Voted Against I-77
It had elements of cinema, or at least reality television. At 9:50 p.m. last Monday, nearly six hours into Charlotte city council’s highest-stakes meeting in years, mayor Vi Lyles tried to put a quick bow on the agenda’s final items. A soft voice in the corner interrupted. “Madam Mayor,” council member Renee Johnson said. Every head turned. “May I make a motion?” Lyles held her mouth open for a few ticks. “A motion for?
A Commodore Comes Home to Charlotte
U.S. Navy Capt. Wade Smith stood at the door of room 130 at Sun Valley High School recently and laughed to himself as he pointed to the sign that read, “JROTC.” His mom, Joan, a former home economics teacher at Sun Valley, looked at the number and said, “That was my room.” “This is blowing my mind,” Capt. Smith said. Smith spent the first week of May experiencing a true homecoming during Navy Week.
Dr. D’s CPCC: The Durable Leadership of Kandi Deitemeyer
The city lights woke up her little girl. Kandi Deitemeyer had driven five hours across North Carolina late that night in December 2016, leaving immediately after her last board meeting as president of College of The Albemarle in Elizabeth City, bound for Charlotte to take the helm of Central Piedmont Community College. Behind the Deitemeyers were years of cancer treatments for their daughter, and memories of a community that carried them through hard times.
Vi Lyles and the Long Ride Home
Vi Lyles tried to leave Charlotte as soon as she got here. She arrived at Queens College in the fall of 1970, not long after the all-women’s school desegregated. Her white classmates dripped with wealth she’d never experienced as the daughter of a blue-collar tradesman in Columbia, South Carolina. At a mixer with Davidson College, Lyles got paired with a “liberal white guy” because Davidson didn’t have a Black man to match with her.
One year of listening to Charlotte
Watch our video message of thanks for one good year of The Charlotte Optimist. Our younger son, 3, enjoys Gatorade. Our older son, 6, has a kindergarten classmate who told him that Gatorade will make your eyes turn whatever color of Gatorade you drink. Our older son went to bed last night worried about his brother’s eyes. This presented a parenting challenge.
They Stand Between Charlotte and its Worst Days
Editor’s note: This story discusses mental health and suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis, Santé’s 24-hour line is 704-566-3410. You can also call or text 988 from anywhere in the U.S. to reach the suicide and crisis hotline. He parked in front of a home in an upscale Charlotte neighborhood and gave a soft fist-bump to a CMPD officer, who shared the bare details: A woman had found her spouse dead by suicide.
“I’m not dead yet”: A breakfast with Thom Tillis
Two days after taking another round of jabs from the world’s most powerful person, Thom Tillis was sitting at a high-top table at a pickleball joint in Charlotte on Friday, telling me about a dispute of a different sort.
What a Gen Z Punk Rocker and a Boomer Bank CEO Agree On
Editor’s note: Six weeks ago, we had a tremendous response to our collection of vignettes from around Charlotte, titled “What’s Going On With Charlotte,” so we’ll make it an occasional series. Kirk Cobb, a former national merit scholar candidate at Charlotte Latin, took a swallow of Pabst and rolled his eyes when his mother told him not to hurt himself jumping off the stage. At 27, Kirk has a sleeve of tattoos down his left arm and a tight-fitting T-shirt that reads “Harms Way” across the chest.
The 704 Kid: From Dillehay Courts to the Hornets Arena
At 11 a.m. on Friday, a Charlotte Hornets employee opened the team store doors and waved in a handful of customers. Within minutes, a steady stream flowed through the racks of purple and teal, most with the same question: “Where’s the 704 Shop stuff?” It was the first day of the locally grown streetwear brand’s collaboration with the city’s first locally grown major pro sports franchise. The 704 Shop-Hornets pairing was years in the making, and the timing couldn’t have been better.
I Read the Book That Says Charlotte Lacks Soul. So I Called the Author.
Back in 2018, I wrote up a 62-page proposal for a book about Charlotte, with the title, “World Class.” That phrase was, for years, as much a part of Charlotte as the weather. It was aspirational; it was comical. My idea was to write a modern narrative bookended by the 2012 DNC and the 2020 RNC, and braid chapters of history in between. My literary agent, who’d suggested I write this book, was about to shop it around to publishers when I hit pause.
The Gray Space - The Charlotte Optimist
Fabi Preslar, who moved to Charlotte at 17 years old carrying only what she could fit in her mother’s car, has spent nearly 30 years helping other people frame and showcase their stories. The small business she founded, SPARK Publications, is technically a custom design and publishing company with a client list that spans the globe. Or something like that. But because of who she is, and because of her own journey, at its core it’s an excavator of purpose.
What Comes After the Last Issue
On an annual family vacation to the Outer Banks last summer, Andy Smith drew a sketch of an ancient creature: a pterosaur, long extinct, believed to be the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight. Smith was the publisher of Charlotte magazine at the time, in charge of the business side of a half-century-old local institution, in an industry that many would classify as endangered.
Tom Gabbard and the Rise of Blume Studios: How Charlotte Became a National Arts Leader
The world-traveling, Tony-voting, Broadway-defining Tom Gabbard can’t find the light switch in his own studio. “Let’s see if we can figure this out,” he says, sweeping his hand along the wall of a dark room built for hocus pocus. We’re in Stage 2 of Blume Studios, the immersive arts venue Gabbard and his Blumenthal Arts team created, somehow, out of an old pipe factory site.
Beyond the Viral Clip of Garry McFadden
Originally published on February 15, 2025. Updated on February 16. As he packed to leave for Raleigh last weekend, ahead of his now-notorious appearance before a state house committee on Monday morning, Garry McFadden spoke with his wife. “For the first time in 37 years of our marriage,” the embattled Mecklenburg County sheriff told me, “she looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Why are you still doing this?’” “Because I’m not done yet,” the 66-year-old responded.
Photo Essay: Charlotte’s Ideal Snow
Charlotte is most flamboyant in fall, most promising in spring, most feverish in summer … and most forgettable in winter. Camellias aside, about the only signs of growth, of life, during this colorless season are the viruses. They get frisky this time of year, while the rest of us keep our toothbrushes separate. It’s not personal; it’s just, winter. This weekend, though, our shared community value — watching something start and rooting for it to grow — came in the form of snow. Real snow.
The College That’s Betting on Better Arguments
In the weeks after the 2020 election, 15-year-old Casey Scheiner was scrolling through YouTube. Because of the pandemic, the internet became a third place for kids like him. Because of politics, it became a place where kids like him could spiral. Scheiner, an earnest kid from California who once won an award for most philanthropic hours served in his community, kept clicking on the outrage, signaling to the algorithm that he wanted more.
Sneak Peek of Advocate Health’s “Room of the Future”
The old cliché about doctors is true for Jeff Cleveland: he often can’t read his own handwriting. Computers were a step toward solving that, allowing him to type notes in the exam room. Still, interactions felt cracked, as he looked back and forth between a monitor and the patient. Now, though, new artificial intelligence technology allows him to be present in the moment — and keep the documentation.
Notes from an icy weekend in Charlotte and beyond
Their saucer sleds are orange and green. “The gween one is mine,” my two-year-old claimed as we pulled the vehicles from the shed on an icy morning in America. The five-year-old jumped right on, riding the orange one down the driveway and into the street. “Daddy, I can go in the street because there’s no cars today,” he said. Bad weather makes rules elastic. Last night we opened a two-person tent in the living room and slept in sleeping bags because, well, why the hell not?
A Real Maryland Crab Cake Finds a Home in North Carolina
I’ve never been mad at a crab cake, but I’ve been disappointed in a few. Other foods are other people’s problem. Pizza? Sure, some pies are better than others, but I’ll take two slices either way. Bagels? My taste buds are unfit to judge. I even find joy in both eastern and western style North Carolina barbecue. A bad crab cake, though, can sink my spirit. It’s born with such promise! To be conceived as a crab cake is like starting life in a corvette shop, and when it emerges as a hooptie, it pains me.
What’s Going On With Charlotte
During the State of the Union two weeks ago, the president dashed off a rhetorical question that made my dander stand up: “And by the way, what’s going on with Charlotte?” To be fair, he asked it in the context of Iryna Zarutska, and her terrible murder on the light rail, a tragedy for her family and friends, and one our city owns like a scar. But now I see the question popping up in any conversation about Charlotte’s ills, as a sign that our home is irreparably broken.
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