Remembering a local hero: ‘Everything he did was to make Charlotte a better place’
John Holmes III was a veteran, a husband, a father and a friend to many. But those who loved him knew him as the guy who rode his bike everywhere, who stood up for what he believed in no matter the cost and who loved Charlotte so much he devoted his life to making it better.
Holmes died unexpectedly Dec. 29, leaving behind a gaping hole in his community of east Charlotte and the entire city. Holmes, 29, was deeply passionate about urban planning issues, most of all pedestrian and cyclist safety. As an avid cyclist himself, Holmes was deeply familiar with the city’s mobility and infrastructure challenges, and he channeled that knowledge into a lifetime of service.
Holmes’ advocacy was rarely conventional, but that unconventional style of advocacy was what made him special. He had a penchant for describing things he supported as “based” or “urban-pilled” and posting off-the-wall memes on social media to get his point across. But he was as solution-oriented as he was humorous, and he was always eager to discuss his passions with others and learn from them..
“He was someone where pretty much everything he did was always in the name of being able to be an advocate for Charlotte,” Jarrett Hurms, who chairs the city’s Transit Services Advisory Committee, said. “Everything he did was to make Charlotte a better place for himself, his family and everyone who lives here.”
Charlotte City Council member Marjorie Molina, who had a close relationship with Holmes, called him a “model advocate” who helped her better understand the needs of Charlotte’s transit-dependent population.
“This young man rode his bike everywhere. He was 100% committed to taking public transportation and riding his bicycle across the city,” Molina told me. “I don’t know many human beings that had that level of commitment to and the awareness of the perils and the areas of opportunity for those without a vehicle in the city like John.”
It was a cause he was willing to fight for. In early 2022, Holmes was working at Chick-fil-A while pursuing a masters in public administration at UNC Charlotte. But that didn’t stop him from speaking up when Chick-fil-A successfully petitioned the city to build a drive-thru-only restaurant in an area zoned for transit-oriented development. He lost his job, and his health insurance, because of it — while his now-wife was seven months pregnant with their daughter. But he never regretted it.
“John had a lot of ups and downs in life, and it seems like at every down, he used it as a propellant to get ahead,” Jordan Lopez, a longtime east Charlotte resident who was recently elected to the North Carolina General Assembly, said. “And I’ve always thought that was the most admirable thing about him. You know, losing his job at Chick-fil-A and turning that into a moment for educating people about what it’s like to not have ease of access.”
Later that year, Holmes co-founded a group called Charlotte Urbanists to advocate for a more equitable and sustainable city. One of the group’s first big projects was building and installing benches at bus stops around the city, particularly in underserved areas where transit stops lacked seating.
“Can you imagine that they did that? Can you imagine that they went around the city and did something so simple but profound?” Molina said.
The group raised thousands of dollars to build more than 80 benches.
“I think that that was kind of an eye opening moment about what it takes to not only serve a community, but to be an actual leader in it as well,” Lopez said. “To, like, stop waiting for somebody else or some other entity to do right by people, and to just get up and do it yourself.”
Christine Edwards Pitkin, founder of the community engagement firm Civility Localized, hired Holmes as a part-time, and later full-time, employee in 2023. Edwards Pitkin remembers Holmes as an “authentic, eager, joyful” person who had a knack for working with people.
“I know that he was not a very religious person, but I am, and I honestly feel like God really brought him into my life for a reason,” she said. “And I feel like I had an impact on him, and he had an impact on me. So I’m very grateful for that.”
Holmes was, at his core, selfless — his advocacy often carried little personal or financial benefit, even when it didn’t result in him losing his job. Before working at Civility Localized, much of the work Holmes did for the community was on an unpaid or temporary basis. He held a myriad of volunteer positions, internships and part-time jobs, all rooted in the same basic purpose: helping people.
“Most of what John did was self-initiated. It wasn’t instructed by the money he made. It was instructed by what he was passionate about,” Molina said. “There’s a very different kind of heart in a human that is willing to do that.”
Nashaly Ruiz-Gonzalez, Holmes’ wife, wants her husband’s kindness and passion for his city to be his legacy.
“I want people to remember him for HIM--for the cheap energy drinks, the Black and Milds, the advocacy,” she told me in an email. “I want people to think of change and remember it starts with one person, and how John was that one person for a lot of people.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
