Opal Lee

Opal Lee — the "Grandmother of Juneteenth" — walked from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., at the age of 89 to campaign for making Juneteenth a federal holiday. She walked two and a half miles each day — symbolizing the two and a half years it took for enslaved people in Texas to learn they had been freed. Her campaign succeeded: on June 17, 2021, President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law, with Lee standing beside him.

Born in Marshall, Texas, in 1926, Lee moved to Fort Worth as a child. On June 19, 1939 — Juneteenth — a white mob burned her family's home to the ground. She was twelve years old. That trauma fueled a lifetime of activism. She became a teacher, a counselor, and a community organizer who had been celebrating Juneteenth for decades before most Americans had ever heard the word.

Lee began her walking campaign in 2016, at age 89, organizing a 1,400-mile symbolic walk from Fort Worth to D.C. She didn't walk the entire distance continuously but organized walks in cities across the route, building grassroots support along the way. She gathered 1.5 million petition signatures. After the holiday was signed into law, Lee continued her work, advocating for land ownership in Black communities and establishing the Opal Lee Land Trust in Fort Worth.