The 2009 MecDec Commemoration Calendar of Events

> “May 20th Children's Speaker Series featuring Doris Kearns Goodwin”
     Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
     time: 10:00 AM
     location: the McGlohon Theater

> “Noon Observance of the MecDec at Independence Square”
     Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
     time: 12:00 noon
     location: Independence Square

The corner of Trade & Tryon will serve as the location to this uniquely-Charlotte annual celebration.  The MecDec celebration has hosted four former Presidents (Taft, Wilson, Eisenhower and Ford), military Generals, a First Lady, and multiple dignitaries.  On the site of the declaration of freedom of May 20, 1775, we will celebrate the signing of the declaration, the spirit of our community and the unique and rebellious history that binds our community together.

Events will include, but not limited to: Military and Colonial Re-enactors, Historical Readings, horses, military parades, modern and urban Slam Poetry, and good ol’ American-styled patriotic celebration of who we are as a people.

Don’t miss out on this free event celebrating Charlotte and its people!

 

 

> “Evening Speaker Series, followed by the 2009 MecDec Lecture Speaker, Doris Kearns Goodwin”
     Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
     time: 7:00 PM
     location: the McGlohon Theater Atrium
     Click here for tickets

The May 20th Society proudly presents acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. This New York Times bestseller illuminates Lincoln's political genius, his mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history. Team of Rivals won the 2006 Lincoln Prize for an outstanding work about the president and/or the Civil War, the inaugural New York Historical Society Book Prize, the Richard Nelson Current award and the New York State Archives History Makers Award. Steven Spielberg is developing a feature film about the book, set to star Liam Neeson as Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary.

Doris Kearns Goodwin won the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, which was a bestseller in hardcover and trade paper. She is also the author of the bestsellers Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. Ms. Goodwin serves as an NBC-TV news analyst and lectures around the world. Goodwin will speak at The May 20th Society’s Fourth Annual Lecture Series event on the evening of May 20th at The McGlohan Theater.