FORT WORTH (1080 KRLD) - The Fort Worth Juneteenth Museum is getting a major makeover.
The current local museum located at the corner of Rosedale Street and Evans Avenue in Fort Worth's Historic Southside is in a nondescript small white building.
That building will soon be knocked down; and in its place will go the new National Juneteenth Museum.
"I'm looking forward to all the people I know helping us to make this the greatest museum in the United States," says Opal Lee, the "Grandmother of Juneteenth" who is almost singlehandedly responsible for June 19th becoming a national holiday.
Juneteenth celebrates June 19th, 1865 -- the day when slaves in Texas, the last Confederate state with institutional slavery, learned that they were free people.
"We want to focus on freedom and how freedom has come to the enslaved for us here in the U.S. on Juneteenth again," says Dione Sims, Opal Lee's daughter and president & executive director of Unity Unlimited. "But again, there's other stories of freedom that have transpired all across the globe."
Sims says the new National Juneteenth Museum will be for everyone, not just for Black people.
"It's not just an African-American Museum," says Sims. "It is about all of the people and all of the stories of freedom -- not just here in the U.S., but globally around the world.
"We want to make sure that the National Juneteenth Museum focuses of course on the Juneteenth story," Sims continued, "but (also) on freedom for everyone and helping them be able to find themselves in the Juneteenth story."
Construction is expected to begin next spring, with the opening slated for early 2024.
"Miss Opal says time is of the essence," says Sims; "and as you know, as somebody that just turned 95, she wants it done yesterday."
"If it is left up to me, they'll get it open earlier," says Opal Lee.
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