Halifax County is celebrating the date memorialized on North Carolina's state flag today. On April 12, 1776, the state's Fourth Provincial Congress met in Halifax to declare sovereignty from the British crown. Carl Burke with the Halifax State Historic Site says the move became known as the Halifax Resolves.
"One of the resolutions passed during the Fourth Provincial Congress, called for North Carolina's delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to concur with the delegates of the other colonies and declare independence. And that made North Carolina the first colony to officially call for independence from Great Britain."
There are two eighteenth century copies of the Halifax Resolves. The copy entered into the Congress's minutes is in the state archives in Raleigh. A second document was sent to North Carolina's delegates at the Continental Congress, and is now stored in the National Archives in Washington, DC.