Opal Lee had a scary experience when she was 12. The year was 1939. Black people were often treated badly in the United States. Lee’s family had just moved into a house in Fort Worth, Texas. But the white neighbors did not want the Black family there. A crowd of white people gathered. They broke windows and burned the house down.
Lee and her family were safe. They moved to another house and rarely talked about what happened. After that dark night, Lee went on to be a bright light in the world. She was a teacher and then a . And she worked with charities, such as Habitat for Humanity. That group builds homes for people in need.
Lee is also called the “grandmother of Juneteenth.” Juneteenth is a celebration to mark the end of in the United States. But for a long time, it wasn’t an official holiday. Lee worked to change that. She started doing walks of 2.5 miles (4 km) to raise awareness. In 2016 — at the age of 89 — Lee traveled 1,400 miles (2,253 km) from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C. She walked hundreds of those miles! She wanted to ask then-president Barack Obama to make Juneteenth a holiday. In 2019, Lee put out a kids’ book about Juneteenth.
Lee’s walk and work brought attention to the celebration. And in 2021, her dream came true. President Joe Biden signed a law to make Juneteenth a holiday. Lee was at the White House to see it happen. Biden gave her the pen he used! Lee also went to a Juneteenth concert. “If people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love,” Lee said that day.
In recent years, Lee started thinking back to that hate-filled night in 1939. She found out that Habitat for Humanity owned the land her house had been on. Lee called the group’s leader, Gage Yager. She asked to buy back the spot her family had fled from. Yager said he wouldn’t sell Lee the land — he would give it to her! And Habitat for Humanity would build her a new house there.
Lee said she felt like dancing when she heard the news. Her new house is expected to be ready in 2024.
Updated January 5, 2023, 5:02 P.M. (ET)
By Ashley Morgan
