June 19, 2026: Dr. Opal Lee, the deeply religious woman who fought to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, will be celebrated today in Fort Worth. The 99-year-old annually holds a “Walk of Freedom,” and the North Texas hero plans to participate again this year.
Participants walk 2.5 miles each year to symbolize the two and a half years that it took enslaved people in Texas to learn they were free.
Juneteenth refers to the day – June 19, 1865 – when orders were given that Texas must enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. It was two and a half years earlier that President Abraham Lincoln had issued the proclamation on January 1, 1863, in the middle of the Civil War.
Coincidentally, on June 19, 1939, white rioters vandalized and burned down Lee’s family home in Fort Worth when she was 12. “”The fact that it happened on the 19th day of June has spurred me to make people understand that Juneteenth is not just a festival,” Lee was quoted as saying in an article in the Fort-Worth Star Telegram.
Lee, widely known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” fought tirelessly to make the day a federal holiday. Five years ago, President Joe Biden signed a bill – on the anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation – making Juneteenth the eleventh federal holiday. He soon also awarded Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation’s highest civilian honor.
She has said her faith is driven by a belief that if people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love.
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