Why 94-Year-Old Activist Opal Lee Marched to Make Juneteenth a National Holiday
Angelique Jackson Ms. Opal Lee is on the move. The 94-year-old activist from Fort Worth, Texas, who is oft-referred to as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” has already begun her annual Walk to D.C., as part of her efforts to see the momentous day recognized as a federal holiday.Each year on June 19, Lee makes a two-and-a-half-mile pilgrimage to commemorate the date in 1865, two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, when more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in Texas learned that they were finally free, marking the true end of slavery in America.