On Juneteenth in 2020, Lee, a social activist and retired teacher, walked 2.5 miles from the Fort Worth Convention Center down Lancaster to the Will Rogers Auditorium.

On Juneteenth in 2020, Lee, a social activist and retired teacher, walked 2.5 miles from the Fort Worth Convention Center down Lancaster to the Will Rogers Auditorium.

“Grandmother of Juneteenth” Opal Lee gives two thumbs up to Fort Worth City Council members for their approval of a resolution in support of the National Juneteenth Museum’s development Feb ...

Older generations walk in Fort Worth to preserve Juneteenth history: ‘Don't let it die' After a recent hospitalization, Opal Lee missed the walk and passed the torch to her granddaughter Dione Sims.

The day became a federal holiday June 17, 2021, with Lee in attendance as President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth bill into law. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Biden in May ...

Opal Lee, known to many as "The Grandmother of Juneteenth," will not participate in this year’s Walk for Freedom march due to a recent hospitalization.

"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 told Fort Worth Star-Telegram as she recalled the incident ...

The holiday to mark the end of slavery in the U.S. goes back to an order issued on June 19, 1865, as Union troops arrived in Galveston at the end of the Civil War. General Order No. 3 declared that ...

Opal Lee, a civil rights leader known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” saw her childhood home burned down in 1939. Habitat for Humanity in Fort Worth, Texas, built a new home for her on the site in ...

In addition to Fort Worth, Tokyo and Los Angeles both held walks to coincide with Lee’s Walk for Freedom this year. Juneteenth had long been commemorated in Texas; it became a state holiday in 1980.