Editing Monroe, North Carolina (section)

==History==
===Early history===
[[File:Monroe, North Carolina early 20th century.jpg|thumb|right|Monroe in the early 20th century]]
Monroe was founded as a planned settlement. In 1843, the first Board of County Commissioners, appointed by the General Assembly, selected an area in the center of the county as the county seat, and Monroe was incorporated that year. It was named for [[James Monroe]], the country's fifth president. It became a trading center for the agricultural areas of the [[Piedmont (United States)|Piedmont]] region, which cultivated tobacco.

===Civil rights struggle===
Racial segregation established by a white-dominated state legislature after the end of the [[Reconstruction era]] persisted for nearly a century into the 1960s. Following [[World War II]], many local blacks and veterans, including Marine veteran [[Robert F. Williams]], began to push to regain their constitutional rights after having served the United States military during the war. Williams and the burgeoning NAACP chapter would be met with fierce resistance during their push to integrate local public facilities. During a 1957 effort to integrate a local swimming pool, the city had an estimated population of 12,000; the press reported an estimated 7,500 members of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] gathering in the city, many of whom arrived from across the South Carolina border just 14 miles away.<ref name="pool">[http://www.crmvet.org/info/monroe57.pdf Williams, Robert F. "1957: Swimming Pool Showdown"], ''Southern Exposure'', c. Summer 1980; the article appeared in a special issue devoted to the [[Ku Klux Klan]], accessed November 17, 2013</ref>

Williams was elected as president of the local chapter of the [[NAACP]] in 1951. He began to work to integrate public facilities, starting with the library and the city's swimming pool, which both excluded blacks. He noted that not only did blacks pay taxes as citizens that supported operations of such facilities, but they had been built with federal funds during the [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s.<ref name="pool"/>

In 1958 Williams hired [[Conrad Lynn]], a civil rights attorney from New York City, to aid in defending two African-American boys, aged nine and seven. They had been convicted of "molestation" and sentenced to a reformatory until age 21 for kissing a white girl their age on the cheek. This became known as the [[Kissing Case]]. The former First Lady, [[Eleanor Roosevelt]], talked to the North Carolina governor to urge restraint, and the case became internationally embarrassing for the United States. After three months, the governor pardoned the boys.

During the [[civil rights movement]] years of the 1960s, there was rising in [[Ku Klux Klan]] white violence against the minority black community of Monroe. Williams began to advocate black armed self-defense. Groups known as the [[Deacons for Defense]], were founded by other civil rights leaders in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The NAACP and the black community in Monroe provided a base for some of the [[Freedom Riders]] in 1961, who were trying to integrate interstate bus travel through southern states. They had illegally imposed segregation in such buses in the South, although interstate travel was protected under the federal constitution's provisions regulating interstate commerce. Mobs attacked pickets marching for the Freedom Riders at the county courthouse. That year, Williams was accused of kidnapping an elderly white couple, when he sheltered them in his house during an explosive situation of high racial tensions.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

Williams and his wife fled the United States to avoid prosecution for kidnapping. They went into exile for years in [[Cuba]] and in the People's Republic of China. In 1969 they finally returned to the United States, after Congress had passed important civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965. The trial of Williams was scheduled in 1975, but North Carolina finally reviewed its case and dropped the charges against him.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

The Jesse Helms family was prominent among the white community during these years. Jesse Helms Sr. served as Police and Fire Chief of Monroe for many years. [[Jesse Helms]], Jr. was born and grew up in the town, where whites were Democrats in his youth. He became a politician and was elected to five terms (1973–2003) as a [[U.S. Senator]] from North Carolina, switching to the Republican Party as it attracted conservative whites. He mustered support in the South, and played a key role in helping [[Ronald Reagan]] to be elected as President of the United States. Through that period, he was also a prominent (and often controversial) national leader of the [[Christian right|Religious Right]] wing of the Republican Party. The [[Jesse Helms Center]] is in neighboring [[Wingate, North Carolina]].

===Late 20th century to present===
Monroe was home to the Starlite Speedway in the 1960s to 1970s. On May 13, 1966, the 1/2-mile dirt track hosted [[NASCAR]]'s 'Independent 250'. [[Darel Dieringer]] won the race.

Since 1984, [[Ludwig-Musser|Ludwig Drums]] and [[timpani]] have been manufactured in Monroe.

As part of the developing [[Charlotte metropolitan area]], in the 21st century, Monroe has attracted new Hispanic residents. North Carolina has encouraged immigration to increase its labor pool.

===National Register of Historic Places===
The [[Malcolm K. Lee House]], [[Monroe City Hall (Monroe, North Carolina)|Monroe City Hall]], [[Monroe Downtown Historic District]], [[Monroe Residential Historic District (Monroe, North Carolina)|Monroe Residential Historic District]], [[Piedmont Buggy Factory]], [[John C. Sikes House]], [[Union County Courthouse (North Carolina)|Union County Courthouse]], [[United States Post Office (Monroe, North Carolina)|United States Post Office]], and [[Waxhaw-Weddington Roads Historic District]] are listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref>