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Opal Lee is 100 years old today. She's known as the grandmother of Juneteenth after she successfully campaigned and marched to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. KERA's Marcheta Fornoff reports on the celebrations in Lee's hometown of Fort Worth, Texas.
MARCHETA FORNOFF, BYLINE: Lee has a philosophy that if something needs to get done, you should go out and do it, even if you're only a committee of one. She was 89 when she started walking from Texas to Washington, D.C., hosting walks in cities along the way. Each one was 2.5 miles. It was a nod to the 2 1/2 years between the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and when a union Army general rode into Galveston and told enslaved Texans they were free. The former public school teacher garnered a lot of attention and got over 1 1/2 million people to sign her petition. In 2025, she told KERA that everyone needed to know about Juneteenth.
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OPAL LEE: I started from Fort Worth walking. I decided that the rest of the cotton-picking country needed to know about Juneteenth, too, 'cause in Texas, we celebrated Juneteenth.
FORNOFF: In 2021, her dream became a reality. Congress passed a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, and President Joe Biden signed it into law. She's happy that the holiday is now celebrated nationwide.
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LEE: I'm so proud it's a national holiday. I could do a holy dance. But when I do a holy dance, I'm twerking, whatever that is.
FORNOFF: Age has slowed Lee down, but not her ambitions. She makes fewer public appearances but continues to advocate for the National Juneteenth Museum to be built in Fort Worth.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Singing) Happy birthday.
FORNOFF: On her birthday, a celebration took place at the future site of the museum. Friends, neighbors and local politicians gathered to hear Lee share a few words and serenaded her with Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday."
LEE: I'm going to keep on walking...
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LEE: ...And keep on talking until everybody understands that this is our contribution.
FORNOFF: Tonight, former First Lady Michelle Obama is scheduled to headline an event celebrating Lee's birthday on behalf of the museum. The museum has raised $55 million for its building and an endowment. The museum is waiting to hit its $70 million goal to start construction.
For NPR News, I'm Marcheta Fornoff in Fort Worth.
(SOUNDBITE OF STEVIE WONDER SONG, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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