Mecklenburg women expressed their desire to be free to vote on this Meck Dec parade float in 1914. It would take another five years for Congress to pass the 19th Amendment. The suffrage movement took 61 years before women won the right to vote.
Charlotteans continue to revel in their independence from the Crown. This copy of a portrait, "Her Excellent Majesty, Charlotte, Queen of Great Britain," was given to the Charlotte mayor by Archibald Henderson for Meck Dec Day circa 1914.
Badge from 1914 showing membership in the Mecklenburg Declaration Society, Inc., Charlotte, NC.
This Meck Dec float (circa 1913) shows some originality as it passes through the streets covered in greenery.
An Automobile Parade and a race at the fairgrounds were the highlights of the 1910 celebration. The Charlotte News, May 20, 1910.
In 1909, William Howard Taft, the newly-elected president of the United States, visited Charlotte on the 20th of May. He arrived by train and was driven into town through special arches erected on Trade and Tryon Streets to welcome him.
In the year following the publication of William Hoyt's skeptical 1907 study, The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the Charlotte News printed this defiant cartoon.
Mecklenburg Declaration activites were once celebrated from May 21st through May 26th, according to this street banner. This postcard was sent in 1908 to Mr. John Linn of Rockwell, NC.
“The First Firecracker” - Caption indicates Mecklenburg’s claim to be the first to declare independence from the British. The Charlotte News, May 20, 1907
The state seal with the “May 20, 1775” date appears officially throughout North Carolina. This image is from Volume 3 of the Biographic History of North Carolina by Samuel A. Ashe, published in 1906.
Pictured here is a 1906 souvenir pin. A souvenir badge is shown in the image gallery below.