‘Grandmother of Juneteenth’: ‘Change people’s minds’

Opal Lee, an educator and activist who has been dubbed the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” led a crowd of hundreds through Fort Worth, Texas, in celebration of the new federal holiday.

Lee, 94, walked 2 ½ miles through Fort Worth while crowds of people cheered her on, The Dallas Morning News reported. She was standing next to President Biden when he signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act on Thursday, making the day a new national holiday.

“Make yourself a committee of one,” Lee said to the gathered crowd. “Change people’s minds. People can be taught. They can be taught to hate. They can be taught to love.”

Lee told the throngs of people that she had no plans of sitting idle.

“We’re going to tackle housing. We’re going to tackle joblessness. We’re going to tackle schools not putting the right things in the books. We’re going to tackle health care. And we’re going to tackle climate change. You hope I live that long,” she said.

Lee had long pushed for Juneteenth to be recognized as a national holiday. In 2016, she walked 1,400 miles from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to bring attention to the holiday, often referred to as Black Independence Day. Juneteenth marks the day freedom was declared for slaves in Texas, the last state in the Confederacy to have institutional slavery.

The Dallas Morning News noted that many of those in attendance expressed concern over Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signing a new law barring the teaching of critical race theory, an academic concept that argues racism has impacted legal systems and government policies in the U.S.

“We have to learn about our history,” Derric Jones, a marcher at the event told The Dallas Morning News. “Learning what enslaved people went through is important for all of us, for all races. It’s not a black or white thing.”