Opal Lee, 97, stated she could still clearly recall the White mob that drove her family from their Fort Worth, Texas, home more than 80 years after they were destroyed by a racist mob.
“Our parents put in a lot of labor. then after that they purchased this house on Annie Street,” Lee recalled of the place she grew up in. “My mother had it beautifully fixed up.”
However, Lee said that soon after they moved in, a group of White individuals gathered because they were upset that a Black family had bought a home in the area.
Would you believe that people began to assemble on June 19? Additionally, there were police present, but they did nothing, Lee Our parents dropped us off at a friend’s house a few blocks away. Then, when night fell, they departed.
“Those individuals disposed of the furnishings. They committed heinous crimes, she claimed. She said that the mob set Lee’s house on fire and destroyed it.
“I buried the entire thing for so long,” Lee continued, adding, “Our parents never discussed it with us, not once.”
However, Juneteenth, the day of the attack, would come to define Lee’s life in the future. Lee claimed that rather than clinging to her anger, she used it as fuel for her actions. She made it her life’s work to support those in her neighborhood and spread knowledge of the significance of Juneteenth, the holiday that honors the emancipation of Black Americans from slavery.
At the age of 89, Lee started a march in 2016 to support the national holiday designation of Juneteenth, starting in Ft. Worth, Texas, and ending in Washington, DC. After years of advocacy, Lee—who earned the nickname “Grandmother of Juneteenth”—was able to finally celebrate Congress declaring Juneteenth a national holiday in 2021, as previously reported.
However, Lee, she started reflecting on the attack on her family that inspired her career of advocacy in recent years. She decided to try to purchase the property where her former house stood.
She then gave a call to Trinity Habitat for Humanity, the landowner, where she had previously been a board member. According to Lee, she asked her longtime friend and CEO Gauge Yager whether he would sell her the land. And he declined.
“I was going to get it from him!” stated Lee.”They gave me the plans, indicating that Habitat would build a house for me on that land. How about that coming full circle, I ask you?
Yager stated “Giving Opal the freedom to do whatever she wants with it or on it would be the best thing to do, given the terrible story finished with her. It closes the circle, but it doesn’t put things right.
According to Yager, Trinity Habitat started construction on the property in October and has created sketches of Lee’s future residence. He said that the organization is presently collaborating with partners to gather funds for the house’s construction.
After 50 years of living in her present house, Lee expressed her desire for it to be turned into a museum. However, she is also excited about taking back her family’s land.
Suddenly she said, “I wanted to do a holy dance.” “Girl, you have no idea how happy I am—I’m a camper!”
