Reflecting on Opel Lee, the ‘Grandmother of Juneteenth’

By Felecia Piggott-Long, Ph.D. Joel 2:25-27 reads: 25 And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. 26 And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you; and my people shall never be ashamed. 27 And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed. Dr. Opal Lee, 97, civil rights activist, is affectionately known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth” because of all the efforts she has made over the years to establish Juneteenth as a federal holiday. In 2016, at the age of 89, she felt led to lead an annual two-and-a-half-mile march in her hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, to symbolize the fact that the enslaved persons in the United States had to wait two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, before the signing took effect on their lives on June 19, 1865, in...