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Opal Lee: The 95-year-old who dreamed and managed to declare Black Independence Day a national holiday

Her dream Opal Lee to see her Juneteenth (abbreviation for June Nineteenth, in Greek June 19) to be a federal holiday finally took place this summer, but the dynamic woman who spent years gathering people to participate in her effort for the day that honors the end of slavery, remains faithful to her life work which is the teaching and helping others.

THE Λι, who celebrated her 95th birthday on Thursday, has dedicated decades of work to making a difference in her hometown of Texas, the Fort Worth.

Then she saw her effort in recent years to cross the borders of her city as she worked for the national recognition of June 19 and stood next to the President Joe Biden as he signed the bill making it a federal holiday, which commemorates the day Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to black slaves in Galveston of Texas, after Civil war.

“We do not want people to think that Juneteenth “is the point where we put a full stop and say ‘end’ because it is not,” he told Associated Press the Λι, who worked for more than two decades as a teacher and counselor in the school district Fort Worth. “It’s the beginning and we will address some of the inequalities we know exist.”

Her recent work at Fort Worth included setting up a large community garden that produced 7,700 pounds of fruit and vegetables last year, delivering food to people who worked with others to transform a former Mr. Klux Klan in a museum and arts center.

As for Black Independence Daythe Opal Lee would like the festivities to last until July 4 and include events that will provide resources for people with finances, health and other issues.

THE Opal Lee was born in 1926 in Marshall, in the East Texas near the border with Louisiana. Her family later moved to Fort Worth when her father got a job there working on the railroad, but her memories of June 19 start from her holidays in Marshall as a young girl.

“They had music and food. They had toys. They had all kinds of fun and food. “It was like any other Christmas,” she recalled Λι.

Her memories from Juneteenth also include a horrific attack on her family in 1939, when a white crowd of hundreds headed to their home in Fort Worth, days after her family moved to a white neighborhood.

She, her parents and her two brothers managed to escape, but they never talked about that day again. The mob broke windows and furniture, according to newspaper reports at the time.

“We would be good neighbors, but they did not give us the opportunity to let them know how good we could be,” she said. Λι.

Her childhood Λι came in the shadow of widespread black and white violence on USA. In 1921, a white mob in Tulsa of Oklahoma, burned more than 1,000 homes and destroyed a thriving business district known as Black Wall Street. Two years ago, hundreds of blacks were beaten, hanged, shot and burned to death by white mobs in USA in the so-called “Red Summer”.

THE Lee is one of the many people who pushed all these years to Juneteenth to be declared a national holiday. Her granddaughter, Dione Sims, said that in 2016 the Λι decided that the effort was too much and that the whole project to succeed needs something to attract attention.

So thinking that “someone will notice an old woman in tennis shoes”, the Λι started walking from the Fort Worth in various cities with final destination on Washington. He continued to organize more walks, meet politicians and collect signatures. Her efforts have gained recognition from celebrities, including Sean “Diddy” Combs, Lupita Nyong’o and Usher.

“You have to have people dedicated and she was definitely committed to that and she did everything to get things going,” she said. Annette Gordon-Reed, his teacher Harvard University and awarded with Pulitzer, historian whose book «On Juneteenth» published this year.

Youth education remains at the heart of it Λι, who obtained a master’s degree in education from today University of North Texas at Denton. He wants to make sure that students’ textbooks tell the full story of racial injustice in USA, so that “we can heal from it and not let it happen again”.

She has written a children’s book entitled «Juneteenth» which helps in teaching the history of slavery.

In one of her most recent works, the Lee is a founding member of a coalition called Transform 1012 N. Main Street, who is working to convert one of his buildings Fort Worth – a former amphitheater Kου Kdeluxe Kλαν – σε Fred Rouse Arts Center and Museum, bearing the name of a black man who was lynched in 1921.

“Let’s do it in the place where people can come and see this reconciliation and all that still needs to be done,” she said. Λι.

THE Adam W. McKinney and Daniel Banks, co-founders of the arts and services organization DNAWORKS, gathered local activists for the project. THE McKinney said that the Lee has a particular way of guiding that persuades others to participate.

“I learn so much from her in every one of our interactions,” he said McKinney.

THE Brenda Sanders-Wise, its executive director Tarrant County Black Historical and Genealogical Society, a group in which the Lee was a founding member stated that the Lee she tends to describe herself as “an old lady in tennis shoes mingling with everyone’s chores.”

THE Saunders-Wise can think of other ways to describe it.

“She is an advocate, activist, leader, general, shrewd man, suffering in the political game. She is the Opal Lee for me “, he underlined. “I call her an agent of change.”

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