Opal Lee is a 96-year-old activist and retired teacher who is widely known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.” On June 17, 2021, her efforts to have Juneteenth made a federally recognized holiday paid off when President Joe Biden signed Senate Bill S. 475. 

Juneteenth is the celebration of June 19, 1865. It was on this day that the last slaves in Texas were told that they had been freed two-and-a-half years before with the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation. 

Lee was born in Marshall, Texas in October 1926. When she was 10, her family moved to a white neighborhood in Fort Worth. On Juneteenth two years later, white supremacists burned their house down and forced the family to move.  

After Lee graduated high school in 1943, she got married and had four children. Following her divorce, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wiley University, then Wiley College in 1953. She also earned a Master’s degree in Counseling and Guidance from North Texas State University. 

She retired from education in 1977 and became an active community organizer. She was a founding member of Citizens Concerned with Human Dignity (CCHD), an organization that helps economically disadvantaged people in Fort Worth find housing. She also helped create the Tarrant County Black Historical & Genealogical Society, which preserves the history of Black people in the Fort Worth area. 

Throughout her life, Lee has often felt the urge to do more.

“I felt like I hadn’t done enough. I was 89-years-old when I got to thinking about [getting Juneteenth recognized],” she told CBS News.

“I was old as dirt,” Lee added with a chuckle, “I decided that maybe if [there was] a little lady, 89-years-old, in tennis shoes walking from Fort Worth to Washington, somebody would pay attention.”

In 2016, Lee decided to push for Juneteenth to be a holiday by walking from her home in Fort Worth to Washington D.C. In each city she stopped in along the way, she organized 2.5 mile walks to symbolize the two-and-a-half-year difference.  

Lee’s second walk to D.C. took place in 2021. Once she arrived, Lee delivered over 1.5 million petition signatures to Congress. 

The measure to create the holiday passed Congress and Lee went to the White House to watch the president sign it into law.  

“I didn't want to get out of line in the White House, but I sure could have done a holy dance,” she told CBC. 

For her work with Juneteenth, Lee has received many accolades. 

In February, the Texas state senate unveiled a portrait of her that will hang in the senate chamber, making her the second African American to have their portrait hung there. It will join the portrait of Barbara Jordan, the first African American to serve as a Texas state senator since Reconstruction and the first African American woman from the South elected to Congress. 

During her appearance at Philadelphia’s Juneteenth flag raising on June 5, she was presented with a citation from City Council and proclamation from Mayor Jim Kenney that made the 5th “Opal Lee Day.”

Last year, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Texas Congressman Marc Veasey and 33 other Congress members.  

In 2019, Lee published “Juneteenth: A Children’s Story,” which explains the history of slavery in the U.S. and the significance of Juneteenth. Lee republished an updated copy of the book in March 2022 that included Juneteenth becoming the twelfth federally recognized holiday. 

She is also helping raise funding for the National Juneteenth Museum. The museum will be located in Fort Worth, Texas and is expected to open on June 19, 2025.