Opal Lee’s centennial in Fort Worth marked two milestones: the woman who spent years building support for Juneteenth as a federal holiday turned 100, and crews began clearing the Southside Community Center site for the planned National Juneteenth Museum.
The Oct. 7 event was a beginning, not an opening. A crew started demolishing the former community center to make room for the museum, a project planned at about 50,000 square feet and projected to open in 2029. The center had served generations of residents and was also used as a voting location, CBS Texas reported. The museum will tell the history of Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the arrival of Union troops in Galveston on June 19, 1865, and the announcement that enslaved Texans were free.
For Lee, the site-clearing milestone was closely tied to a life of local work. She was a teacher, counselor and community activist in Fort Worth, and she became a founding board member of the museum. The National Juneteenth Museum scheduled its ‘Clearing the Way’ ceremony for her birthday, describing it as a transition toward construction of the museum’s permanent home in the city’s Historic Southside.
The day also brought a $3 million commitment from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints toward museum construction, the Associated Press reported. The AP quoted Lee expressing gratitude after the announcement. A separate release from the Church said museum plans include a genealogy center intended to help visitors discover and preserve family histories.
Lee’s best-known public campaign helped bring Juneteenth to the national calendar. President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act in 2021, and Lee stood beside him. For years before that, she urged people to learn the holiday’s history and take part in celebrating it. Her work connected a national change to the community traditions she had known since childhood.
Lee has recalled Juneteenth celebrations in Fort Worth that included food, music and games. As an adult, she helped plan local celebrations, the Associated Press reported. The museum says that in 2016, at age 89, she began a 1,400-mile trek from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to petition for national recognition. The museum’s history records that she left in September 2016 and arrived in Washington in January 2017. Her annual 2.5-mile walks in major cities recalled the roughly two and a half years between the Emancipation Proclamation and June 19, 1865, when news of freedom reached enslaved people in Galveston. CBS Texas reported that the Fort Worth walk became an annual hometown tradition.
That history gives the new museum site a role beyond the demolition schedule. Its mission is to preserve and share the story of Juneteenth, while museum plans include a genealogy center to connect visitors with family history. The National Juneteenth Museum has described its work as an effort to carry Lee’s vision forward. The building is not yet built, but site clearing marks a visible step toward the permanent home.
The financing effort is still part of the story. CBS Texas reported that the project is planned at $70 million and that museum CEO Jarred Howard said it was about 70% funded as of Oct. 7. Those figures describe a campaign in progress, while the museum building is still ahead and its projected 2029 opening remains in the future.
In a CBS Texas interview published for her birthday, Lee said she still wanted young people to understand their responsibility to leave the world better than they found it. That idea connects her long campaign for federal recognition, this museum site in her hometown, and a place intended to share Juneteenth’s history with future visitors.
At 100, Lee was present for the first visible clearing of a site intended to hold that story. The museum will take years to complete, and its future programs remain ahead. But the birthday milestone, the start of demolition and the gift toward the project gave Fort Worth a concrete moment to celebrate both Lee’s work and the next step in sharing Juneteenth’s history.
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