Opal Lee hadn’t seen inside her new home Friday morning in Fort Worth as she rocked in a white chair on the front porch.
The Grandmother of Juneteenth - who lost her house on the same lot to a racist mob 85 years ago - smiled as she took the key to the 1,700-square-foot, three-bedroom house, paid for by the community. After the speeches and ceremony, she took nothing but her blue toothbrush and new key through the front door.
On Wednesday, June 19, Lee will lead the community in her annual 2.5-mile walk at the African American Museum of Dallas to recognize the two and a half years it took for the news of freedom to reach enslaved people in Texas.