'Grandmother' of Juneteenth Opal Lee attends her 1st DNC at age 97
Opal Lee, the woman known by many as the "grandmother of the movement" to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, is attending her first-ever Democratic National Convention at the age of 97.
Lee traveled from Texas to Chicago to support Vice President Kamala Harris, who would make history if elected as the nation's first female president, second Black president and first South Asian president.
Lee told ABC News on Tuesday that it is a "full circle" moment for her to see a Black woman at the top of a presidential ticket.
"At 97, to really see a Black woman running for president, I tell you, I could do a holy dance," Lee said while attending the DNC. "I would do anything to see her become president of the United States."
The 97-year-old added that she is ready to rally for Harris, saying, 'I hope she calls on me, because I am willing."
When President Joe Biden signed a bill in 2021 making Juneteenth a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, both Biden and Harris credited Lee with making the legislation happen.
Biden described Lee as the "grandmother of the movement" to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.
In her remarks, Harris also gave Lee due, saying, "And looking out across this room, I see the advocates, the activists, the leaders, who have been calling for this day for so long, including the one and only Ms. Opal Lee."
In 2016, at 89 years old, Lee, a former teacher and lifelong activist, walked from her home in Fort Worth, Texas, to the nation's capital in an effort to get Juneteenth named a national holiday.
Four years later, Lee's activism helped push Congress to establish a new national holiday for the first time in nearly 40 years. In 1983, lawmakers designated the third Monday in January as Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to memorialize the assassinated civil rights leader.
"I was overjoyed. I was ecstatic," Lee said in 2020, describing her reaction to the legislation's passage. "I was so happy I could have done a holy dance."
Juneteenth -- also known as Freedom Day, Liberation Day and Emancipation Day -- is celebrated on June 19 to mark the day in 1865 when African American slaves in Galveston, Texas, were among the last to be told they had been freed -- a full two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation outlawed slavery in the Confederacy and two months after the Civil War officially ended.
In May, Lee received the Presidential Medal of Freedom honoring her work to commemorate the end of chattel slavery in the nation.
The next month, in June, Lee attended the White House's first-ever Juneteenth celebration, a concert that featured Audra McDonald and Jennifer Hudson and remarks by Harris and Biden.
"Make yourself a committee of one to change somebody's mind," Lee told the audience gathered on the White House's South Lawn at the time. "If people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love."
