FORT WORTH, Texas — Opal Lee celebrated her 100th birthday Wednesday by helping launch a new chapter in the preservation of Black history: work on the National Juneteenth Museum in her hometown.
Community members, civic leaders and supporters gathered in Fort Worth’s Historic Southside neighborhood as demolition began at the former Southside Community Center, clearing the site for the planned museum. The Associated Press reported that the 50,000-square-foot museum is projected to open in 2029.
The timing connected the project directly to Lee, the retired educator and activist widely known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.” Her decades of advocacy helped build national support for recognizing June 19 as a federal holiday, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2021.
Lee began a highly visible campaign at age 89 that symbolically connected Fort Worth with Washington, D.C., and called on Americans to recognize the date when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston in 1865 and announced freedom for enslaved people in Texas—more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Her personal history gives the museum’s mission added weight. On June 19, 1939, when Lee was 12, a white mob forced her family from its Fort Worth home and destroyed the property. Rather than allow that violence to define the end of the story, Lee spent her life turning remembrance into organizing, education and celebration.
Wednesday’s “Clearing the Way” ceremony marked the removal of the old community-center building and the beginning of site preparation. The National Juneteenth Museum described the event as a milestone in creating a permanent institution dedicated to the history and continuing meaning of Juneteenth.
The celebration continued Wednesday evening with a special installment of the museum’s Uniting Voices Speaker Series at the Fort Worth Convention Center featuring former first lady Michelle Obama. The museum said the program was designed to honor Lee’s life and advance its work toward a permanent home.
The museum is planned as more than a collection of historical objects. Its organizers envision exhibitions, education programs and community spaces that connect emancipation history with continuing questions about citizenship, justice and opportunity. Its location in Fort Worth’s historically Black Southside places that national story inside a living community with its own history of resilience.
For Texas and the nation, the project carries particular significance. Juneteenth began as a Black Texas commemoration before growing into a national observance. The Fort Worth museum will give that history a permanent home while recognizing the woman whose persistence helped move the holiday from local tradition to federal recognition.
Lee’s centennial celebration was therefore about more than reaching 100 years. It marked a rare moment when one person could witness the start of an institution built to carry her life’s work into future generations.
