{"id":342194,"date":"2026-06-19T01:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T01:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/342194\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T01:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T01:50:16","slug":"opal-lee-juneteenth-walk-returns-to-fort-worth-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/342194\/","title":{"rendered":"Opal Lee Juneteenth walk returns to Fort Worth this year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Raymond<\/p>\n

Raymond Hill, Fort Worth interim fire chief, makes Opal Lee laugh during a press conference at the Bob Bolen Public Safety Complex on Thursday, June 18, 2026. The press conference stressed the importance of mentorship, literacy and mental wellness.<\/p>\n

Elvis Martinez-Cartagena<\/p>\n

FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM<\/p>\n

Fort Worth civil rights icon Opal Lee\u2019s spirit was as lively as ever on Thursday, June 18, during a press conference and panel discussion celebrating her life and legacy ahead of her Juneteenth Walk For Freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Opal Lee, everybody\u2019s grandma,\u201d Lee said as she introduced the discussion, evoking laughter and cheers from the audience as she joked that even at her age of 99, she has plenty to learn from younger folks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I know everything, and teach me, if you will,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI\u2019d appreciate it, and we\u2019ll be seeing each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee, a Fort Worth native, will return to lead the annual Opal Lee Juneteenth Walk For Freedom on Friday, June 19, in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

The walk is a tradition that began in Fort Worth in 2015<\/a> as a way to lobby for Juneteenth to become a federal holiday. Now that the day is a federally recognized holiday, the walk has come to represent a place to spread awareness about what Juneteenth represents.<\/p>\n

According to Lee\u2019s great-granddaughter, Robin Sims, the holiday is about making sure history is remembered and not repeated.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur history, this history, her history matters,\u201d Sims said during the panel discussion. \u201cWe want to keep Juneteenth at the forefront, because if we don\u2019t, we\u2019ll be repeating things that they\u2019re trying to make happen already, as we see again, and we don\u2019t have time for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaac Keys, an actor, activist, and former NFL linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings, Arizona Cardinals, and Green Bay Packers, agreed, and said that he wasn\u2019t taught about Lee\u2019s story in school growing up in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a victim of being one of those students where my African-American history was not always taught to me. What she did, the activism, the thing that she did behind the cameras, behind the scenes, was not taught to me,\u201d Keys said. \u201cI had to go seek the knowledge, because not being taught to me is no longer an excuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Lee was 89, she symbolically walked<\/a> 1,400 miles from Texas to Washington, D.C., to show the importance of Juneteenth. She walked 2.5 miles each day because it took 2.5 years for the news of emancipation to reach slaves in Texas.<\/p>\n

The Opal Lee Walk for Freedom in Fort Worth is 2.5 miles for the same reason.<\/p>\n

In 2021,<\/a> when former president Joe Biden signed legislation to make Juneteenth a national holiday, Lee was in attendance.<\/p>\n

Fort Worth City Council member Chris Nettles, who represents District 8, said during the panel that the walk would encourage difficult conversations about the role of law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cJuneteenth is one of those days that we\u2019re going to have a heavy police presence,\u201d Nettles said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to keep us safe, they\u2019re going to be marching with us, they\u2019re going to be walking with us. Those are times that we can have these types of candid conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the panel was taking questions from the public, a resident asked Fort Worth Police Chief Eddie Garcia if there are plans to fund programs to help reduce gun violence in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like words without actions is really not progressing us forward,\u201d the woman said. \u201cWith Juneteenth being about the liberation and collectiveness and bringing the community together, I just want to know, are there going to be more funding to go into programs that are preventative services that actually may help us reduce gun violence?\u201d<\/p>\n

Garcia responded by saying that there is a specific process for evaluating these programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to start looking at programs through a criminological lens to ensure that the programs that we are funding, that they\u2019re evidence-based, and they\u2019re backed by science with regards to their effectiveness,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n

The moderator of the panel discussion, police officer Tracy Carter, did not allow any more discussion on the matter, saying that the panel was about \u201chonoring Miss Opal Lee.\u201d<\/p>\n

The walk for freedom will take place at 9 a.m June 19 at Will Rogers Square, 3401 West Lancaster Ave.<\/p>\n

\"Opal Opal Lee, civil rights activist, left, embraces hands with Dr. “T” Taylor during the Juneteenth press conference at the Bob Bolen Public Safety Complex on Thursday, June 18, 2026. In 2024 Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Elvis Martinez-Cartagena FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM \"A A Barbie doll of Opal Lee sits on a table during a Juneteenth press conference at the Bob Bolen Public Safety Complex on Thursday, June 18, 2026. Lee began her career as a teacher and counselor in the Fort Worth Independent School District. Elvis Martinez-Cartagena FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM \"Opal Opal Lee, civil rights activist, smiles during a Juneteenth press conference at the Bob Bolen Public Safety Complex on Thursday, June 18, 2026. Lee is known as the \u201cGrandmother of Juneteenth.\u201d Elvis Martinez-Cartagena FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raymond Hill, Fort Worth interim fire chief, makes Opal Lee laugh during a press conference at the Bob…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-342194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}