Dr. Opal Lee is known as the "Grandmother of Juneteenth" for her tireless effort to make sure that time in history became a national holiday. Juneteenth, which is celebrated on June 19, commemorates the day that enslaved people in Texas found out they had been freed. That news didn't reach them until two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
It's that history that the life-long Fort Worth resident has been teaching for decades to anyone who will listen.
While she doesn’t remember much, Lee said she knows what happened at her family home in 1939. It’s an area off East Annie Street in what is now known as the Historic Southside Neighborhood.
"Would you believe that the newspaper said there were about 500 people gathered across the street over there," Lee said. "And do you know the policemen were all there and when my dad came home from work with a gun the police told him if he busted a cap, they would let the mob have us."
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That day, that angry mob burned her family home to the ground. She said at the time she barely knew what was happening.
"Our parents worked like Trojans to get us out of there. They took us down a few blocks and that's where we stayed," Lee said.
Dr. Opal Lee
Decades have passed and Lee has used her time wisely. Advocating for voters’ rights, for the rights of the unhoused, literacy for children and walking to Washington, D.C. to get the attention of lawmakers and President Joe Biden to get Juneteenth designated as a federal holiday.
She never lost sight of the fact that she wanted that land her family's home used to stand on, that has been vacant for so long. Lee eventually found out that Trinity Habitat for Humanity owned that land, a nonprofit that coincidentally, she is a founding member of.
"I was going to put a house on it for sale and then Habitat brought me the plans of a house they planned to build. I was so happy I could have done a holy dance! I was awestruck. I didn't know how to act and I have decided that he house that the house I live in, I'm going to leave [that house] and only bring my toothbrush to the new one," Lee said.
For their part in history, Trinity Habitat’s CEO Gage Yager partnered with Citizens Concerned with Human Dignity to break ground on the historic lot. They told NBC 5 it was a fitting gift for Lee’s lifelong dedication to racial justice, affordable housing, and her influence within the community. They sold the land to her for $10, just to make the transaction legal.
Lee is known for doing so much for her community with work that reverberates internationally, and now, she is getting a beautiful reward of her own. When Texas Capital and Texas-based HistoryMaker Homes found out the house was for Lee, they made it a team effort to do it for her, free of charge.
"Her legacy won’t be [just] Juneteenth, but a collaboration and when you show love for one another and you have a heart for others it comes back what, three-fold," Effie Dennison with Texas Capital said.
Texas Capital Foundation has funded the cost of all the new furnishings for the home and will also provide volunteers for the wall-raising for the house. HistoryMaker Homes has been working with Lee to pick all the interior design and they are absorbing the cost to build it.
A turn-key gift for a woman who deserves so much.
Ironically, the house is going to be just a few blocks down from where the National Juneteenth Museum is set to open in 2025. Lee and her team have already raised more than $30M for the project of the $70M they need.
Lee has accomplished so much in her 97 years, but she still said, she isn't done.
"There is so much work to be done. You can't rest on your laurels, but I am so thankful to God that he has allowed me to do the things that have brought me to this point," Lee said.
The team working on the home is hoping to have it done as soon as possible.
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