As any good Charlottean knows, today is Meck Dec Day, when Mecklenburg County celebrates its pivotal – if unproven – role in America’s independence. The Charlotte Observer reports that some Charlotteans have unveiled plans for a Charlotte Liberty Walk, a high-tech tour of places in Uptown Charlotte that used to be Revolutionary sites.
Even if you don’t buy the Meck Dec story (sacrilege!), the “Hornet’s Nest” of Mecklenburg played an important role in the American Revolution. If only someone – say, the executive director of a statewide non-profit – had put together a book on the subject . . .
May 20 is also the date on which North Carolina seceded from the Union, becoming the last state to join the Confederacy. Few subjects in American history have been written about more than the Civil War, yet few are so misunderstood and mythologized. Even a century-and-a-half later, that war (along with its causes and aftermath) looms over Southern history, and any writer trying to understand, explain, or describe the South with any depth ought to have an understanding of that war.