In 2021, President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday. Activist and educator Opal Lee was present when he signed it into law. It celebrates the end of slavery in the United States.
Opal worked tirelessly to make the big day happen. She organized many 2.5 mile walks in Fort Worth, Texas. In 2016 she even walked 1,400 miles from Fort Worth to Washington, DC, to lobby then-President Barack Obama. Juneteenth 2024 was an extra special year because she was given a house on the site of her former family home that a racist mob burned down 85 years ago.
Several Texas organizations worked together to make the big day happen, including Trinity Habitat for Humanity and Texas Capital. The gave the home to Opal for just $10. HistoryMaker Homes built the structure while JCPenney furnished it.
Gage Yager, the Trinity Habitat for Humanity CEO, got to do the honors and present the home to Opal. The pair are good friends so it was a special moment. "With tears of sadness for past atrocities and tears of joy for this momentous occasion, we are humbled and honored to welcome our friend Opal home. There truly is no place like home," he stated.
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This day fulfills a lifelong dream of Opal's. She had always wanted to buy back the land where her family home once stood. Trinity Habitat for Humanity just beat her to it. Opal called Gage to tell him about the property's history, which he was not aware of.
June 19, 1939, was a dark day for Opal's family. A racist white mob burned their home down to the ground because they were unhappy a Black family moved into a white neighborhood. Opal recalled this somber memory to Variety.
"People gathered. The papers say that it was 500 strong, and that the police couldn't control them," she explained. "My dad came home with a gun, and the police told him if he busted a cap, they'd let that mob have him."
Opal mourned what could have been. "If they had given us an opportunity to stay there and be their neighbors, they would have found out we didn't want any more than what they had — a decent place to stay, jobs that paid, [to be] able to go to school in the neighborhood, even if it was a segregated school," she went on to say. "We would have made good neighbors, but they didn't give us an opportunity. And I felt like everybody needs an opportunity."
Opal is excited to make new joyful memories at her home. She gushed about this to the Associated Press. "Everybody will know that this is going to be a happy place," she mused.
President Biden was honored to sign the bill that made Juneteenth a federal holiday. "I have to say to you, I have only been president for several months, but I think this will go down, for me, as one of the greatest honors I will have as president — not because I did it, you did it, Democrats and Republicans," the commander-in-chief stated. "It's an enormous, enormous honor."
Opal believes Juneteenth celebrations make the country better. "It's not a Texas thing or a Black thing. It's an American thing," she told CBS affiliate KTVT.
