Dr. Opal Lee said she is just brining her toothbrush to her brand new home as she jokingly discussed what the new house meant to her.
According to ABC It was June 19, 1939, when Opal Lee remembers her parents sending her to a friend’s house several blocks away when an angry mob showed up at her family’s home to protest Black residents moving into the Fort Worth, Texas, neighborhood. Lee was 12 years old.
That night, the mob burned down the Lee family home.
It was 74 years after enslaved Black people in the U.S. found out they were freed.
Now, 85 years later, Lee, known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth for her efforts in getting the date recognized as a national holiday, has received keys to a new home built on the site of the childhood home that was reduced to ashes.
“It amazes me because we would have been good neighbors, you know,” Lee told GMA3 co-anchor DeMarco Morgan during the first interview inside her new home. “They didn’t see it that way,” Lee said of that time during the Jim Crow era.
Lee, 97, is known for her civil rights activism and her Juneteenth appeal.
In 2016, she walked 1,400 miles from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., to draw attention to the date.
She found success in her efforts when President Biden signed the June 19 holiday into law in 2021. Earlier this year, Lee received the Presidential Medal of Freedom honoring her work to commemorate the end of chattel slavery in the nation. She attended the Juneteenth celebration on the White House lawn last week.
Reflecting on the legacy of her work, Lee looks to the young people to take the next steps.
“I’m wanting young people to realize that we can make a difference. And so I’m asking them to make themselves a committee of one to change somebody’s mind,” Lee said. “We know people who aren’t on the same page will change their minds; not gonna happen in a day. You’ll have to work at it. But if people have been taught to hate, they can be taught to love.”
For years, she tried to find out who owned the land where her family’s home was burned down. Eventually, she found out it was owned by Habitat for Humanity, an organization for which Lee had previously served on the board.
When she tried to buy it, the nonprofit declined to sell, instead giving her the land and plans for building a new home on it for free.
Now, in the new house – furnished with a mix of new and some of her own vintage pieces, decorated with handpainted pictures of Lee and her family, and completed with a fully stocked fridge – Lee says she is humbled and grateful to have the home.
“My mom would say, Baby Opal – that’s what she called me – it’s about time. It’s about time,” Lee said.
Opal Lee, the 97-year-old Texan known for her push to make Juneteenth a national holiday, was given the keys Friday to her new home, which was built on the same tree-lined corner lot in Fort Worth that her family was driven from by a racist mob when she was 12. pic.twitter.com/5KDObLWrAj
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 19, 2024
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A historic homecoming for the “Grandmother of Juneteenth”. When Opal Lee was 12, a racist mob drove her family out of their Texas home. She was gifted a new home on the very same land today. pic.twitter.com/fOq2vigTQZ
— Kendria LaFleur (@KendriaLafleur) June 14, 2024
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On this day, June 19, 1939, Opal Lee and her family were forced out of their home by a mob of 500 white people in Texas. Lee fought for years to commemorate Juneteenth. In 2021, President Biden gave Lee the first pen when he signed the law making Juneteenth a federal holiday. https://t.co/jxVkMN72sw pic.twitter.com/SP0s9OngLd
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 19, 2024
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On this Juneteenth, here are some words of wisdom from Dr. Opal Lee for the next generation.
I also had the honor to participate in the first international Opal's Walk for Freedom in Tokyo today. It was a glorious day with people from all walks of life coming together as one. pic.twitter.com/3QMCGsMPxN
— Darryl Wharton-Rigby ダリル・ワートン-リグビー (@whartonrigby) June 19, 2024
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Today we celebrate JUNETEENTH! ????????
Quick history lesson on how it became a national holiday. Thank you Opal Lee ????pic.twitter.com/wPjyJOqKzX
— Darius Butler (@DariusJButler) June 19, 2024
