What the Heck is Juneteenth Anyhow?  A Story of Opal Lee

In tough times, stay focused on the beacons of light.

Adapted from Corinna Wood’s email. Thank you Corinna! I know the bestest people in the whole dang world, and you can find them too on the divine feminine app

Opal Lee was 12 years old when her family moved into their new home in Fort Worth Texas pursuing the American dream.   Two days later, white rioters broke into her home and burned it to the ground.

As she grew older and had children of her own, Opal Lee became a community activist and later a school teacher and counselor. At 89 years old, she took up the cause of elevating to a federal holiday Juneteenth—celebrated by African Americans since the late 1800s.

Juneteenth is the anniversary of June 19, 1865 when Union soldiers came to Galveston, TX to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation freeing enslaved people. That was the last state in the U.S. to end slavery.

In 2016, Opal Lee, 89, walked towards Washington, DC, giving talks and speeches along the way. She would go from one city to the next, and in each city would walk 2 ½ miles to commemorate the 2 ½ years it took for the enslaved people of Texas to learn that they were free.

“I was thinking that surely, somebody would see a little old lady in tennis shoes trying to get to Congress and notice,” she told the television network CNN.

Straight from Opal:

We Can’t Let Destructive People Rule Us

Change No Longer Matter How Long It Takes is Achievable

If People Have Been Taught to Hate, They Can Be Taught to Love

Opal Lee, grandmother of Juneteenth, moves into new home on family’s former lot in Fort Worth.

For the next four years, her walk became an annual campaign, until in June 2021 when President Biden signed legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday. 

Although she was only 12 when the racist mob took their house, Opal has said that she never lost hope of someday owning her family’s lot on the south side of Fort Worth.

Just days ago, Opal moved into her new home built for her by Habitat for Humanity in that very place.

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