Opal Lee, known as the "grandmother of Juneteenth," led her annual walk to mark the holiday Wednesday. Lee championed the creation of a holiday to mark the day Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and ordered the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation after the Civil War.
Lee, now 97, has walked 2.5 miles in Fort Worth to mark the two and a half years it took for slaves in Texas to learn about the Proclamation. Wednesday, she moved the walk to Fair Park in Dallas, starting outside the African American Museum.
"I'm delighted, I really am, that so many of you are celebrating freedom," she said to people who had gathered to walk with her. "I don't mean freedom in Texas or freedom for Black people. I mean freedom for all of us."
Organizers set up a stage outside the museum for music and speakers. Some who walked with Lee said the sense of community created a "good vibe."
"She is about that life, seriously. It's the small things. If we all do a small thing, it adds up to be a big thing," one woman said.
"To have someone like Ms. Opal come and remind us how valuable our freedom is, that's for every man. Equality," a man said.
He said he was also glad to see so many children in the crowd to learn the importance of the holiday.
"Seeing how our people were able to evolve, this is monumental," he says. "It feels like we're actually part of a moment."
President Joe Biden declared Juneteenth a national holiday in 2021. In April, he awarded Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Lee says she hopes a celebration can help people learn the history of how the nation evolved and urged those attending to make themselves a "committee of one."
"You know people who aren't on the same page you're on. Change their mind," she told the crowd. "It's not going to happen in a day. You're going to have to work at it, but if people have been taught to hate, they can be taught to love."
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