Lifelong Dream Fulfilled
For more than four decades, retired Fort Worth ISD educator, alumna and living legend Opal Lee has advocated for the United States to recognize Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
This week, her hard work is paying off. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law, earlier today, June 17.
On Wednesday, June 16, the U.S. House voted 415-14 to make Juneteenth, commemorating the official end to slavery in the U.S., the nation’s 12th federal holiday. The Senate unanimously approved the bill earlier this week.
Holding the hand of Vice President Kamala Harris, Ms. Lee was present at the White House and joined the president for the signing, which officially makes Juneteenth the country’s first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day, approved in 1983. Ms. Lee received the president's first ceremonial pen following the signing. View video from the signing here.
“Wow! I am beyond excited to see my lifelong dream and mission of making Juneteenth a national holiday become reality,” Ms. Lee wrote in a post on her Instagram page, hours prior to the president signing the bill into law. “I am beyond grateful to all who have helped make this happen.
“After years of preaching the importance of Juneteenth as a unifier for our country, I’m thrilled to see our country finally recognize it as the national holiday that it should be.”
Juneteenth, annually celebrated June 19 in African American communities across the United States, commemorates the day the last Southern enslaved Black people were officially emancipated in Texas. On June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordan Granger arrived on the shores of Galveston with news that the Civil War had ended, and that enslaved people were free. The order was announced more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, declaring an end to slavery throughout the United States.
For years, Ms. Lee, known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” led several walks from Fort Worth to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., advocating that Juneteenth be recognized nationally as a federal holiday.
"Over the course of decades, she's made it her mission to see that this day came. It was almost a singular mission," President Biden said of Ms. Lee during his remarks. "She's walked for miles and miles literally and figuratively to bring attention to Juneteenth, to make this day possible."
In 2020, Ms. Lee’s fight to have June 19 recognized nationally was shared across social media and resulted in 1.4 million joining her campaign by signing an online petition to see that the date is recognized federally. Her story was shared by celebrities including Usher, Diddy and Lupita Nyong’o. Just five years earlier, her efforts led to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signing a bill to create a Juneteenth license plate.
This Juneteenth, Saturday, June 19, Ms. Lee will lead her annual Opal’s Walk, a 2.5-mile walk through Fort Worth recognizing the 2.5 years it took news to reach Texas that all enslaved people in the United States were free. The event is being livestreamed on FOX SOUL, and Ms. Lee is inviting individuals in Fort Worth and afar to join her in walking 2.5 miles on Saturday. Learn more about Opal’s Walk at www.opalswalk2dc.com.
In recent weeks, Ms. Lee was invited to participate in a discussion hosted by Harvard University, and she has been on multiple panels with notable celebrities and professors. In May, she was featured in the magazine, Southern Living.
Earlier this month, the City of Fort Worth announced that Fort Worth Housing Solutions (FWHS) and its development partner AMTEX will “build a 339-unit, luxury, mixed-income community” in far North Fort Worth called The Opal, in honor of Ms. Lee. Read more about the project here.
Ms. Lee is a former Fort Worth ISD teacher and counselor and 2019 FWISD Wall of Fame honoree.
She is also a 1943 alumna of I.M. Terrell High School; the chair of Juneteenth Fort Worth; a founding member of the Community Food Bank; organizer of Opal’s Walk 2 DC; co-founder of Citizens Concerned with Human Dignity; board member of Habitat for Humanity and Unity Unlimited and the visionary behind Opal’s Farm.