Famous people had their roots here

Mecklenburg and surrounding counties have had countless famous transients, from bluegrass musician Bill Monroe (who made his first recordings in Charlotte in 1936) to basketball immortal Michael Jordan, owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. Folks have settled here to solidify star status (wrestler Ric Flair) or recover from the turmoil of it (pop singer Fantasia Barrino).

But some heavyweights had roots here.

They're the folks we'll recognize in this alphabetical list, the ones who sprang from Charlotte and counties touching it and blazed onto the national scene in culture, business or politics. We're limiting ourselves to one person per field - although, in the category of U.S. president, we'll have to make room for two.

Romare Bearden: The 100th anniversary of the painter's birth is Sept. 2, 2011. He left Mecklenburg County as a toddler, but fond memories of his frequent trips south to visit grandparents produced indelible images in his deceptively simple art. His boyhood household became a meeting place for members of the Harlem Renaissance, and he promoted acceptance of African American art until his death in 1988, when the New York Times called him America's foremost collagist.

William Henry Belk: The son of a farmer killed by Union troops was born in 1862 in Lancaster County and grew up in Monroe. He opened a tiny department store there in 1888, called The New York Racket. By the time it moved to Tryon Street in Charlotte in 1908, it simply bore the family's last name. From there, the chain spread across the South and still has more than 300 stores, including flagships in Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh and Birmingham, Ala.

Doris Betts: Carson McCullers wrote part of "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" in Charlotte, and teacher/novelist Kathy Reichs (who inspired the TV series "Bones") has worked at UNC Charlotte. But Betts, who'll turn 80 next June and was born in Statesville, may be the most famous literary native. The distinguished former UNC professor won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Medal of Merit, and her short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim" became the Oscar-winning short film "Violet."

George Clinton: The much-honored funk musician from Kannapolis, who turned 70 in July, has had an amazing career: leader of the doo-wop group the Parliaments, staff writer at Motown ("I Wanna Testify"), founder of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic (which produced three platinum albums and more than 40 R&B hit singles), producer for Bootsy Collins and Red Hot Chili Peppers, inspiration or collaborator for Prince, Tupac Shakur, Outkast and countless others.

Elizabeth Dole: The woman who turned 75 in July has had a long life in public service: campaigner for John F. Kennedy, assistant to Lyndon Johnson, Federal Trade Commission member, director of the White House Office of Public Liaison and U.S. secretary of transportation under Ronald Reagan, U.S. secretary of labor under George H.W. Bush, U.S. senator from North Carolina from 2001 to 2007. Before any of that, she grew up at the family home in Salisbury.

Dale Earnhardt: The Intimidator was born in Kannapolis and raised in Cabarrus County, in the heart of NASCAR country. No surprise, then, that he went on to win seven championships (tying him with Richard Petty for the most ever) and 76 races in the Winston Cup (now Sprint Cup) series. He died in 2001, 10 weeks short of his 50th birthday, in a last-lap crash while trying to win his second Daytona 500 race. He entered the NASCAR Hall of Fame in the inaugural group.

Billy Graham: America's most famous evangelist was born to dairy farmers outside Charlotte in 1918, four days before the armistice ending World War I. He converted to Christianity at 16 after hearing tent revivalist Mordecai Ham and went on to preach the gospel to huge crowds, beginning with his first evangelistic crusades in 1948. He was on Time magazine's cover in 1954 and met with presidents from Harry Truman to Barack Obama. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association sits on the parkway bearing his name in his home town.

James K. Polk/Andrew Jackson: Polk, 11th president of the United States (1845-49), was born in Pineville, where a reconstructed homestead now sits on Lancaster Highway; he oversaw the annexation of most of the current Southwest after the Mexican-American War, the issuance of the first postage stamps and the opening of the U.S. Naval Academy. Jackson was born near the border between North and South Carolina in an area known as "the Waxhaws," and both states claim him. The seventh president (1829-37) eliminated the national bank, presided over the forced relocation of Indians to the west and paid off the national debt for the first and only time in 1835. (That lasted one year, until a recession set in.)

Randolph Scott: The underrated actor who appeared in more than 100 films - most of them westerns, as a laconic hero - was born George Randolph Scott on his parents' trip to Virginia but grew up in Charlotte. He made seven classic westerns with director Budd Boetticher, bid farewell to Hollywood with "Ride the High Country" (director Sam Peckinpah's breakthrough) and inspired the Statler Brothers' song, "Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?" (Answer: He died at 89 in 1987 and is buried in Charlotte's Elmwood Cemetery.)

Robert Williams: Civil rights pioneers have moved to Charlotte, worked here or moved on to labor elsewhere. (Franklin McCain, an organizer of the groundbreaking Greensboro sit-in of 1960, was born here.) Monroe's Robert Williams is the most controversial: He was president of the Monroe NAACP in the 1950s, promoted integration and protected Freedom Riders - drawing a charge of kidnapping, which he went to Cuba to avoid - wrote the book "Negroes With Guns," which influenced Black Panthers founder Huey Newton with its suggestion that blacks arm against violent racists, and broadcast on Radio Free Dixie. He returned to Monroe in 1975, where the old charge was dismissed, and died at 71 in 1996.