Meet Opal Lee, the 'grandmother of the movement' to make Juneteenth a federal holiday
Opal Lee has been described as the "grandmother of the movement" to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.
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 -- commemorating the end of slavery in the United States -- 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.
When then-President Joe Biden signed a bill in 2021 making Juneteenth a federal holiday, it became the first federal holiday established in the U.S. since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was signed into law in 1983.
"I wanted young people to realize that we can make a difference," Lee told ABC News in 2024 of her yearslong dedication to making Juneteenth a national holiday.
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.
For many years, Lee herself walked two-and-a-half miles each year on June 19 to mark the time between the Emancipation Proclamation and when the news of freedom arrived in Galveston.
In 2025, Lee, now 98, will watch as the annual Walk for Freedom event in Forth Worth is led by her granddaughter, Dione Sims, according to local ABC station WFAA-TV.
In 2024 -- the same year she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- Lee marked the anniversary at the White House's first-ever Juneteenth celebration, a concert that featured Audra McDonald and Jennifer Hudson.
"Make yourself a committee of one to change somebody's mind," Lee told the audience gathered on the White House South Lawn. "If people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love."
A Texas native, Lee said she experienced racial unrest firsthand during her childhood, including the night hundreds of rioters set fire to her family's home on June 19, 1939.
"The people didn't want us. They started gathering. The paper said the police couldn't control the mob. My father came with a gun and police told them if he busted a cap they'd let the mob have us," Lee told ABC station KTRK-TV in Houston. "They started throwing things at the house and when they left, they took out the furniture and burned it and burned the house."
"People have said that perhaps this is the catalyst that got me onto Juneteenth, I don't know that," she said.
Advocates like Lee say Juneteenth offers a day to reflect on slavery's terrible stain on American history and for celebrations that look similar to those on the Fourth of July.
Juneteenth celebrations have become more mainstream in recent years, taking on added significance in 2020 when the country went through a racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd.
Lee said she hopes the federal holiday will help educate people about what happened and become a day of national unity.
"I just know that the time has come for us to work together," Lee told ABC News.
Editor's note: This report was originally published on June 18, 2021.
