Opal Lee speaks at the University of Delaware
Sean Greene | Published Oct 27, 2021
Five years ago, then-90-year-old Opal Lee embarked on a journey that would take her from a Fort Worth, Texas church to Washington, D.C., in an attempt to get Juneteenth honored by the federal government.
“I left the church steps walking 2 1/2 miles to symbolize that the enslaved didn’t know they were free for 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation,” Lee said during an event at the Biden Institute on the University of Delaware campus Tuesday.
Lee, who retired as a counselor for the Fort Worth Independent School District in 1977, has spent over four decades since working to help those economically disadvantaged get into a better position.
Lee told a crowd at the University of Delaware that they need to go to school board meetings, and make sure people are voting, in an attempt to tell the tale of America’s growth from the Black perspective.
“Make yourself a committee of one to change somebody’s mind, and you can do it, you’ve got to do it, because none of us are free until we are all free. So, we’ve simply got to turn our country around and make it a model for the world.”