Opal Lee excited about second Walk for Freedom, national Juneteenth museum

Opal Lee, grandmother of Juneteenth, continuing her mission to spread awareness

The Fort Worth woman known as the grandmother of Juneteenth will again mark the national holiday she helped create. Good Day's Brandon Todd joined Opal Lee to find out more about her next Walk for Freedom and her continued mission to spread awareness about the day in history.

FORT WORTH, Texas - The woman known as the grandmother of Juneteenth is preparing to mark the national holiday she helped create.

Opal Lee is so excited about the walk and more so that she is starting what she hopes will become a yearly tradition.

Lee became a recognized civil rights figure back in 2016 when she walked from her home in Fort Worth to Washington D.C. all in an effort to get Juneteenth recognized as a national holiday.

Juneteenth, or June 19, commemorates the end of slavery in Texas and much of the south. On that day in 1865, former slaves in Texas learned slavery had been abolished by President Abraham Lincoln two years earlier with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Last summer, President Joe Biden signed a bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Now Lee has her sights set on what will eventually be a much larger Juneteenth museum in Fort Worth to take the place of her current museum in the city’s historic southside neighborhood.

"Now we’re going to have a national Juneteenth museum on that corner. We’re going to have a theater and an incubator and apartments, housing. I tell you, I’m just blown away by the whole thing and looking forward because it’s going to be operable in 2024," she said.

Lee said she really sees herself as an advocate for history. Good, bad or indifferent, she said it’s something people need to know.

The Visit Fort Worth’s second Walk for Freedom kickoff breakfast is coming up on June 18 at the historic Evans Avenue Plaza from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. That event costs $20 per person.

Lee’s Walk for Freedom follows at 10 a.m. Tickets for the walk start at $25.

The I Am Juneteenth Festival in Fort Worth follows at 4 p.m. on June 18 at Panther Island. For more information, visit https://www.fortworth.com/events/annual-events/juneteenth/.