motivational
The grandmother of Juneteenth turned 100 and kept walking
She got the holiday made law. She is not done walking.
Opal Lee turned 100 this week, and marked it the way she has marked most of the past decade, by showing up. The woman widely called the grandmother of Juneteenth attended a ceremony at the site of the planned Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth. Former first lady Michelle Obama appeared alongside her. Lee spent years walking to push for Juneteenth to become a federal holiday, covering two and a half miles at a time, a nod to the span between the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the day enslaved Texans finally learned they were free. The holiday became federal law in 2021. She has vowed to keep on walking. A century in, that is less a slogan than a schedule she intends to keep.
