Opal Lee Shares Her Story

AROUND CAMPUS

Trailblazer, respected civil rights activist, community leader, teacher, counselor, mother, daughter, grandmother … Opal Lee is all of these things and more to the Fort Worth community. When she began her walk in 2016 from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to draw attention to Juneteenth, the day the Civil Warera Emancipation Proclamation was announced in Galveston, Texas (June 19, 1865; two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued it on January 1, 1863), she became a national treasure. For an extended celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Lee joined the Fort Worth Country Day community for the second MLK Forum sponsored by the Country Day Institute (CDI). She shared her inspiring story and the journey that led to President Joe Biden signing into law on June 19, 2021, the Juneteenth National

Independence Day Act, creating a federal holiday to commemorate Juneteenth. This is the first federal holiday approved since Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 1983. The day of the signing marked the 156th anniversary of the last Black enslaved people being freed in Texas.

Lee began the program by inviting all students in the audience to come forward and sit with her so she could share her book and read to them personally. She read, for the very first time, the Juneteenth: A Children’s Story special edition, which includes the historic establishment of Juneteenth as the 12th federal holiday with pages dedicated to the signing of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act. A Q&A followed moderated by Nicole Masole, Director of Community Engagement and Inclusion at FWCD.

Lee repeated throughout the program: Make yourself a committee of one to help someone, to help your community, to volunteer to help others. “We can do so much more together than separate,” she shared.

Lee, affectionately known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth for leading the charge to see that the National Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth also becomes a reality, encouraged community involvement. Lee’s granddaughter, Dione Sims, representing her grandmother’s nonprofit, Unity Unlimited, spoke about establishing the National Juneteenth Museum.

“I'm still processing what it means to have had such a magnanimous figure on our campus,” said Spencer Smith, former CDI Director and Upper School English Teacher. “For all her accomplishments, accolades, and celebrity associations, she was simply delightful company – humble, generous, sharp, and radiating positivity and personal warmth. Ms. Lee is a living, breathing history lesson whose experience parallels Dr. King’s to a phenomenal degree. The MLK Forum exists to revisit Dr. King’s message and methods annually; I can’t think of a better guest.”

To this day, Lee walks two-and-a-half miles each year on June 19 to mark the time between the Emancipation Proclamation and when the news of freedom arrived in Galveston. “Juneteenth is not a Texas thing; it’s not a Black thing. It is freedom for everyone,” Lee said.

Upper School students pose with Opal Lee who signed copies of her book, Juneteenth: A Children’s Story special edition. The book memorializes her life’s work and includes pages dedicated to the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which created a federal holiday to commemorate Juneteenth in 2021.