Opal Lee’s dream of making Juneteenth a nationwide holiday finally came true over the summer, but the energetic woman who has spent years rallying people to join her foray for the day to commemorate the end of slavery joining barely wears off lifelong teaching and helping others.
Lee, who celebrated her 95th birthday on Thursday, has spent decades making a difference in her Texan hometown of Fort Worth. Then she saw her legacy stretch well beyond the city in recent years as she campaigned for the national recognition of Juneteenth, and stood next to President Joe Biden as he signed the law that enslaved the 19th freedom Blacks in Galveston, Texas after the Civil War.
“We don’t want people to think Juneteenth is a breakpoint because it isn’t,” Lee, who worked as a teacher and advisor in the Fort Worth School District for over two decades, told The Associated Press. “It’s a start, and we’re going to address some of the inequalities that we know exist.”
Her most recent work in Fort Worth included setting up a large community garden that produced 7,700 pounds of fruit and vegetables last year, delivering groceries to people who cannot leave their homes, and working with others to build a former Ku Klux Convert Klan Auditorium into Museum and Center for the Arts.
As for Juniteenth, she wants the celebrations to run through July 4th – and include events to provide resources to help people with finances, health, and other issues.
Lee was born in Marshall, Piney Woods, East Texas near the Louisiana border in 1926. Her family later moved to Fort Worth when her father took a job on the railroad there, but her memories of the Juniteenth date back to her celebrations in Marshall as a young girl.
“They had music and food. They had games and food. They had all kinds of entertainment and food. It was like another Christmas, ”said Lee.
Her memories of Juneteenth also include a harrowing attack on her family that day in 1939, when a white mob of hundreds entered their Fort Worth home after the Black family moved to a white neighborhood. She, her parents, and two brothers escaped, but their parents never talked about the day again. The mob broke windows and furniture, according to newspaper reports from the time.
“We would have been good neighbors, but they didn’t give us a chance to let them know how good we could have been,” said Lee.
Lee’s childhood was overshadowed by widespread black-white violence in the United States. Two years earlier, hundreds of black people were beaten, hanged, shot and burned by white mobs in the United States during the so-called “Red Summer”.
Lee is among the numerous people who have pushed for a national holiday in June over the years.
Her granddaughter Dione Sims said Lee decided in 2016 that the effort was taking too long. “She said, ‘It just takes a little attention,'” said Sims.
On the grounds that “someone would notice a little old lady in tennis shoes,” Lee planned to walk from Fort Worth to Washington, DC. She organized more walks, met with politicians and collected signatures. Her efforts have been recognized by celebrities including Sean “Diddy” Combs, Lupita Nyong’o, and Usher.
“You have to have people who are committed to making things happen, and she’s certainly campaigning and moving things forward,” said Annette Gordon-Reed, Professor at Harvard University and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, of her book “Released On Juneteenth” was released this year.
Educating young people remains a focus of Lee, who earned a Masters degree in Education from what is now the University of North Texas at Denton. She wants to make sure that student textbooks tell the full story of racial injustice in the United States so that “we can heal it and not let it go again.”
Recently, what schools teach about race and racism has become a political lightning rod as some Republican-led states, including Texas, prohibit or restrict the teaching of certain concepts.
“I firmly believe that schools are actually being told the truth,” said Lee, who wrote a children’s book called Juneteenth that helps teach the history of slavery.
In one of her most recent projects, Lee is a founding member of a coalition called Transform 1012 N. Main Street, which is working to turn the Fort Worth building – a former KKK auditorium – into the Fred Rouse Center and Museum of Art and Community Healing, Bears the name of a black man who was lynched in 1921.
“Let’s make sure people can come and see this reconciliation and all sorts of things that need to be done,” Lee said.
Adam W. McKinney and Daniel Banks, co-founders of the arts and services organization DNAWORKS, brought together local activists for the project. McKinney said Lee has a style of leading that invites others to join.
“I learn so much from her every time we interact,” said McKinney.
Brenda Sanders-Wise, executive director of the Tarrant County Black Historical and Genealogical Society, a group Lee was part of, said Lee had a penchant for describing himself as “just a little old lady in tennis shoes who gets into all matters.” . “Sanders-Wise can think of a couple of other ways to describe it.
“She’s an advocate, an activist, a leader, a strategist and a shrewd tactician, that’s Opal Lee to me,” said Sanders-Wise. “I call her an agent for change.”
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