The sun bearing down, 94-year-old Opal Lee pushed forward.
Around her, friends and strangers screamed and waved. Television crews and photographers scrambled to capture every step. Supporters chanted her name.
Wearing faded black tennis shoes and red track pants, Lee walked 2½ miles on Saturday, leading a crowd of hundreds through Fort Worth on her annual trek to draw attention to Juneteenth.
But this year’s walk was a victory march. It came just two days after President Joe Biden, with Lee at his side, signed into law a bill declaring Juneteenth a national holiday.
Lee is being called the “grandmother of Juneteenth.”
“We have a civil rights legend, icon and giant right here in Fort Worth,” said Sultan Cole, the pastor of Revealed Word Ministries in Fort Worth. “Today is a day to rejoice.”
Juneteenth recognizes the day in 1865 that Union troops arrived in Galveston to inform enslaved people of their freedom, about 2½ years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Black Americans, especially in Texas, have celebrated the day for decades, but interest in Juneteenth has grown in recent years, particularly after the deaths of George Floyd, Botham Jean and others and the resulting protests over police brutality.
Most years, Imani Sanders, 16, a student at Southwest High School in Fort Worth, spends Juneteenth eating barbecue and attending church with her family.
But this year, she joined Lee’s walk, beginning at Evans Avenue Plaza on Fort Worth’s near South Side and ending at the Tarrant County Courthouse downtown.
“In the Black community, we sometimes feel like we’re all alone. I know we’re free, but it can feel like we’re being held back,” Sanders said. “Today, it feels like we’re not alone in the fight.”
“For me, Juneteenth is about new beginnings,” she added.
Lee, who grew up in Texas, recalled celebrating Juneteenth by picnicking with her family, first in Marshall and later in Fort Worth.
In 1939, when she was 12, a mob of 500 white supremacists set fire to her family’s home in Fort Worth and destroyed it. Lee and her family were forced to flee, and no arrests were made.
That event would catapult her into a career as an educator and activist. In 2016, Lee made her way from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., walking 2½ miles in several cities along the way to represent the 2½ years it took for news of emancipation to reach Galveston.
“Make yourself a committee of one,” Lee told the crowd on Saturday. “Change people’s minds. People can be taught. They can be taught to hate; they can be taught to love.”
While they were jubilant about Juneteenth’s national recognition, numerous marchers worried that a new law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott barring public schools from teaching certain concepts related to race and racism would have disastrous effects.
The law aims to ban the teaching of critical race theory, which is an academic term that describes how racism has affected social structures in the United States.
Some even worried that teachers would be prohibited from discussing Lee’s legacy.
“We have to learn about our history,” said Derric Jones, 43, of Fort Worth, who was draped in an American flag. “Learning what enslaved people went through is important for all of us, for all races. It’s not a black or white thing.”
As they walked, marchers sang “This Little Light of Mine.” Near the back of the throng, a large Black Lives Matter flag flew. Signs read, “When Opal Says Walk, We Walk” and “Honor History.”
On a makeshift stage in front of Bass Hall, a musician sang Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” as the marchers approached.
With Juneteenth an official holiday, Lee said she does not plan to sit 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, to the crowd’s laughter.
Afterward, Lee waded through the crowd to front of the courthouse. She watched as county constables raised the Juneteenth banner to fly next to the American flag.
In the background, the song often called the Black national anthem played and people joined in: “Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring.”
Lee glanced up at the flag once more before walking on.
