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TEXAS  —  Dr. Opal Lee, known ask the Grandmother of Juneteenth, called for unity in an open letter she penned to President Donald Trump to coincide with his inauguration on Monday. 


What You Need To Know

  • Fort Worth, Texas, resident Dr. Opal Lee, known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth, wrote an open letter to President Donald Trump to coincide with his inauguration 
  • Lee famously worked to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday 
  • In the letter, Lee calls on Trump to lift the country up 
  • In 2024, Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Lee, 98, a Texas resident, helped to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday. In June 2021, former President Joe Biden signed a bill making Juneteenth the 11th federal holiday.

In 2024, Biden awarded Lee the Presidential Medial of Freedom.

“As a life-long educator, I know that what we teach today shapes tomorrow. So if people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love,” Lee wrote in her letter to Trump.

Lee has been a staple of the Fort Worth community for decades as she tirelessly led a grassroots campaign to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. It commemorates the day when the last slaves in Galveston, Texas, learned of emancipation on June 19, 1865. 

In 2016, Lee — who was 89 at the time — conducted a symbolic walk from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to urge lawmakers to make Juneteenth a national holiday. 

In her letter to Trump, Lee asked the president to lift the country.

“Division is the easy choice. Unity is the courageous one. It takes leaders like you to choose that path, even if it’s hard,” she wrote. “You have the power to teach us all what is possible when service replaces spectacle and humanity takes center stage. Let your legacy be one that lifts us, not one that weighs us down.”

Lee’s letter to Trump: