Tribute to Opal Lee – A Woman With A Purpose!
By
John C Abercrombie
Opal Lee was born on October 7, 1926, in Marshall, Texas. The family moved to Fort Worth, Texas when she was 10 years old. She attended the Cooper Street Elementary school before going to I M Terrell High School. I M Terrell opened in 1882 as the city’s first Black school. The school closed in 1973 but was reopened as an elementary school in 1998. Following extensive renovation and expansion it is now the I M Terrell Academy for STEM and VPA (Visual Performing Arts). It is located in the Butler Place Historic District. Opal Lee graduated from the original school at the age of 16 in 1943.
In 1939, the family moved into a new house that was located in the “White” community. 4 days later, June 19th, the neighbors burned the new family home to the ground.
After graduation from high school, She married and had 4 children before going to Wiley College now University in 1953. Wiley College is a private, historically Black liberal arts college located in Marshall, Texas. It was founded in 1873 by the Methodist Episcopal church ad Bishop Isaac Wiley. It is one of the oldest predominantly Black colleges west of the Mississippi River.
Known as a dedicated teacher, she taught at Amanda McCoy elementary School for 15 years. She also worked at Convair, now Lockheed Martin to support her children. She returned to school receiving her master’s degree in Counseling and Guidance from North Texas State University before serving as a Home/School Counselor for Fort Worth Independent school until she retired in 1977.
Retirement did not mean that she stopped working, just that she changed what she was focused on. She had always been involved in community and this gave her the chance to become a founding member of the Citizens Concerned with Human Dignity (CCHD) which was devoted to assisting the economically disadvantaged in finding housing in Fort Worth. She also volunteered at Habitat for Humanity, serving on the board. She continues to serve on the Habitat Land Acquisition Board.
Lee ad Lenora Rolla established the Tarrant County black Historical & Genealogical Society to preserve history in Fort Worth. She continued to work with several other community minded programs. Extremely interested in voter rights, she has also served as a precinct chair for 30+ years.
MS Opal Lee has a long history of preserving the history and timeline of the Emancipation of Texas slaves. She lived with the motto “None of us are free, until we are all free.”
With the same dedication that she maintained all of her life; she started a walk Opal Walk 2 DC with the goal of taking 100,000 signatures to the legislature to support Juneteenth as a National Holiday. Along the way, she was invited to other cities along the way. When she reached DC, along with her were 1,500,000+ signatures in support of the bill.
We see in the many videos showing her at 94 that she is vivacious, full of love and determination. She was given front row seating at the signing and given special shout outs from President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for her work.
Let us clear up some misconceptions. The Emancipation Proclamation took effect January 1, 1863, the 3rd year of the Civil War, the bloodiest American war. It declared that all persons held as slaves within the rebelling states (The Confederate States of America) wee declared “are, and henceforward shall be free.”
The Emancipation Proclamation does not eliminate all slavery, only in those states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery legal in those slave states that remained loyal to the Union. The document also exempted those parts of the Confederacy that was under the control of the Union.
To understand the mechanics, many slaveowners moved their slaves to Texas where the landowners could flee the heart of the war and still make a fortune with the free labor of provided by the slaves. While the war did not end with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, it did end months before the slaves were informed by General Gordon Granger and a contingent of 7,000 Black soldiers that they were now and forever free! This is the event we celebrate with Juneteenth!
Freeing of the slaves is not the end of the story, it is only the beginning. We have an entire race of people who have been in bondage for centuries and have nothing to show for it, no savings because they were not paid. No land because they had no money to pay for it. No where to go. Then laws were passed to keep them from home ownership and the privileges that were given to the people making the laws. Slavery was not the end of mistreatment only a change in form.
We see in Opal Lee a person with a purpose in life and the vitality that few enjoy at the age of 94. It is fitting that we give a tip of the hat to an American Hero.
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Stories of Juneteenth:
A Conversation with Ms. Opal Lee In 2016, at the age of 89, former teacher and lifelong activist Opal Lee walked 1,400 miles from her home in Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., in an effort to get Juneteenth recognized as a national holiday. Two years later, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution recognizing the holiday, which originated in Galveston, Texas, and honors the June 19 anniversary of the announcement by Union Army general Gordon Granger proclaiming freedom from slavery in Texas. Though the day is now celebrated annually throughout the United States, Ms. Opal does not consider her work complete: “We have simply got to make people aware that none of us are free until we’re all free, and we aren’t free yet,” she told the New York Times last June.
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Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free:
The True Story of the Grandmother of Juneteenth The true story of Black activist Opal Lee and her vision of Juneteenth as a holiday for everyone celebrates Black joy and inspires children to see their dreams blossom. Growing up in Texas, Opal knew the history of Juneteenth, but she soon discovered that many Americans had never heard of the holiday that represents the nation’s creed of “freedom for all.” Every year, Opal looked forward to the Juneteenth picnic–a drumming, dancing, delicious party. She knew from Granddaddy Zak’s stories that Juneteenth celebrated the day the freedom news of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation finally sailed into Texas in 1865–over two years after the president had declared it! But Opal didn’t always see freedom in her Texas town. Then one Juneteenth day when Opal was twelve years old, an angry crowd burned down her brand-new home. This wasn’t freedom at all. She had to do something! Opal Lee spent the rest of her life speaking up for equality and unity. She became a teacher, a charity worker, and a community leader. At the age of 89, she walked from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, D.C., in an effort to gain national recognition for Juneteenth.
ABH – Opal Lee What It Means to be Free
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Opal Lee of Fort Worth
has been pushing for Juneteenth to become a national holiday Congress passed the bill, which President Biden is expected to sign.
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OPAL’S WALK:
The Life and Works of Opal Lee The biography of Opal Lee as told to the author, Renetta W. Howard and her working passion to get Congress to make JUNETEENTH a federal holiday.
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Grandmother of Juneteenth,
Opal Lee, Shares the Importance of this Historic Holiday | Southern Icons Opal Lee, known in Fort Worth as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth”, is a 94-year-old trailblazer on a mission to generate greater recognition for Juneteenth across the United States. Opal has dedicated her life to educating others about the history of Juneteenth, while also encouraging them to celebrate this historic holiday each year. The Emancipation Proclamation outlawed slavery on September 22, 1862, but slaves in Texas did not know that they had been freed. So, Juneteenth was first celebrated on June 19th, 1865, when General Gordon Granger and 7,000 black troops journeyed to tell 250,000 black enslaved people in Galveston, TX that they were free. Opal Lee leads a 2.5-mile march from Downtown Fort Worth, TX to signify the remaining length of time that these slaves in Texas were left in bondage. Today, Juneteenth symbolizes freedom, and it is a call to action for unity. Therefore, Opal Lee is currently advocating for Juneteenth’s consideration as a paid federal holiday! Tune in to learn more about this historic day, and how Opal Lee encourages others to work together to eradicate the racial disparity experienced in this country.
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Juneteenth: A Children’s Story
An engaging way to introduce the history of slavery and freedom to children in words they can understand. Ms. Opal highlights the celebration of Juneteenth and the importance of commemorating this milestone all across America.
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At 94, Fort Worth activist Opal Lee views Juneteenth
as her most important lesson Lee, known to many as “Miss Opal,” is deeply involved and rooted in the United Riverside neighborhood.
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How the Word Is Passed:
A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America Instant #1 New York Times bestseller. “The Atlantic writer drafts a history of slavery in this country unlike anything you’ve read before” (Entertainment Weekly). Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves. It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving more than four hundred people. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola, a former plantation–turned–maximum-security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers. A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country’s most essential stories are hidden in plain view—whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women, and children has been deeply imprinted. Informed by scholarship and brought to life by the story of people living today, Smith’s debut work of nonfiction is a landmark of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of our country and how it has come to be.
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94-Year-Old Opal Lee’s Lifelong Fight To Make Juneteenth A Federal Holiday
Finally A Reality As Erin Jones reports, Lee is known as the grandmother of Juneteenth.
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We see in the life of Opal Lee a dedication and passion for something good. She did not fall prey to hate which eats us from the inside out. Instead of sitting and wishing, she took action. Something that we can all do. Something that we all should do. The celebration of Juneteenth is not the end, it just calls attention to a much larger problem that requires all of us to solve.