by Domenic Clementi, Military & Veterans Editor
Thirteen hundred and sixty miles is obviously more than a mere long walk — it is an odyssey — but Opal Lee made that journey, symbolically at least, beginning in 2016, hiking 2.5 miles a day around her Fort Worth, Texas neighborhood and in cities across America, until she had clocked all of the distance from there to the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Opal Lee walked those miles in the hope that it would inspire a movement to turn the 19th of June — long recognized and honored in Texas as Juneteenth — into a federal holiday honoring the final liberation in 1865 of all remaining enslaved African-Americans by the Union Army. She believed that the 2.5 miles would represent the 2.5 years it took from 1862 until word of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation reached African slaves in Texas in 1865.
The holiday itself dates to a pivotal moment in the final days of the Civil War. This momentous event followed on the heels of the final surrender of Confederate forces in Texas on June 2, 1865. The day of emancipation for black slaves in Texas was near at hand, ushered in by the arrival of Union Major General Gordon Granger in Galveston, who issued General Order No. 3 on June 19, 1865:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
— General Order No. 3, Major General Gordon Granger, Galveston, Texas, June 19, 1865. National Archives: archives.gov/news/articles/juneteenth-original-document
Walking nearly 1,400 miles for any cause is an amazing feat of determination, but a breathtaking one when one considers that she did it at the age of 89. Interviewed in 2022 by David Ramirez from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dr. Lee said: "I gathered some people at my church, my pastor, the musicians, the county commissioners, school board members and they gave me the sendoff. I started walking from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C. … I just knew somebody would notice a little old lady in tennis shoes, and they did."
And they did notice. Dr. Opal Lee’s passion to make Juneteenth a national day of commemoration for the end of slavery fostered a movement, restoring attention to the traditional celebration of the day itself and generating the political will to establish every June 19th officially as Juneteenth National Independence Day. This Friday, we celebrate a day that symbolizes for so many the inspired result of a long struggle to find freedom and dignity as Americans.
To learn more, see the following:
“Who is Opal Lee, Grandmother of Juneteenth, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, October 8, 2022: star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article266903351.html
“Opal Lee,” Wikipedia entry, June 17, 2026: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opal_Lee
Read more: For a full guide to this week’s Juneteenth events across Prince William County and the Commonwealth — including the Juneteenth & Me Festival at Pfitzner Stadium — see Celebrating Juneteenth in Prince William County — and Across the Commonwealth.
Domenic Clementi
Military & Veterans Editor
The Woodbridge Gazette
woodbridgegazette.com
[email protected]