FWTX Staff
Perhaps no one ever in Fort Worth — maybe all of America — has bookends on the journey of life quite like the immeasurable Opal Lee, a titan of 21st century civil rights, better known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth.
Consider: As a 12-year-old girl, Opal watched as a white mob burned down her family’s home on Annie Street. At 95, she was the guest of the White House, a witness to an act of history that she worked so tirelessly to see happen.
The man who led that mob isn’t but a lonely gravesite somewhere. His last remaining victim has carved out a place for herself in American history.
“She’s been fighting for what’s right all of her life,” says Frederick Gooding, an associate professor of African American history in the John D. Roach Honors College at TCU, as well as a Ronald E. Moore Professor of Humanities. “All of her life she has had to deal with trauma. Think about it. The home is the bedrock of building wealth in this country, and someone burns down your home. That’s a traumatic event. And for hundreds of people to say we don’t want you in this neighborhood. All [her father] was trying to do was live the American dream just like everyone else.
“But to take that trauma and turn it into triumph, to never stop walking the path, and this never-say-die spirit. She never let go of a vision of reconciliation, truth, and justice. She’s never let go of that. In many ways, she represents, for me, the quintessential American.”
FWTX Staff
For the second year, our sister publication, Fort Worth Inc., has honored a single Fort Worthian with the title Person of the Year. The honor is bestowed on an individual who has demonstrated a significant contribution to making Greater Fort Worth a better place to live and work with emphasis placed on their contributions over the past year. This year, the honor goes to Opal.
Opal’s decades-long campaign for Juneteenth to be recognized as a federal holiday became reality last June when President Joe Biden, with Opal in attendance, signed the bill making Juneteenth the 11th federal holiday to be celebrated every June 19 forever on.
“We’re blessed to mark the day in the presence of Ms. Opal Lee,” Biden said that day. “You’re incredible. Hate never stopped her. Over the course of decades, she has made it her mission to see that this day came.”
Later in the year, a Congressional delegation, led by Fort Worth Democrat Marc Veasey, recognized Opal for a dedication to the cause of civil rights and racial equality by nominating her for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Also, this past year, she published a children’s book titled Juneteenth, dedicated, she said, to all the children of the U.S. who need to be made aware of their history. As important was news that Fort Worth would be home to a to-be-constructed National Juneteenth Museum in the Historic Southside. When she was at the White House, Biden wrote her a check for $6.19, which is part of the campaign to raise funds for the museum. All who want to contribute can make a check out for $6.19 or $60.19 or $600.19. Or whatever resembles 6/19.
There is much more to know about Opal Lee than her walk across America to raise awareness for Juneteenth, all the while gathering 1.5 million signatures, in her 89th year. She since had gathered 1.5 million more signatures, a total of 3 million, she says, when the White House called her last year with an invitation.
At 95, Opal still has dreams, and they’re all on this list she has mentioned three or four times. It’s a list as long as a child’s at Christmastime, she says. None of them, other than perhaps the fix on her home, have anything to do with her.
Opal has some property around town that she wants to make housing for homeless, including a trailer in her own backyard that she used as a storage shed. She cleaned it out and envisions making it into two living quarters. She has two other lots that she wants to do the same, except she is intrigued by the idea of the shipping containers that builders are using to make homes. In Texarkana, she owns a property that used to be in her family. She wants to make a park of that.
Opal has thought about the prize that comes with winning the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s about $1 million. All of those projects for the homeless have a place in the would-be proceeds.
Less known as well about Opal is the work she does quietly from her home. Not far from her house is Opal’s Farm, where produce is distributed to the hungry through food banks, including the one she started at her church, Baker Chapel AME Church, which she has been a member of since 1937, two years before the attack on her family’s home.
The great news is that Opal Lee isn’t finished yet. She lives to make a difference in the present and thinks about the future. Even at 95.
“I keep telling them, I’m just a little old lady in tennis shoes getting in everybody else’s business,” Opal says. “And having a damn good time doing it.”
