Opal Lee, known to many as "The Grandmother of Juneteenth," will not participate in this year’s Walk for Freedom march due to a recent hospitalization.

Opal Lee, 97, spent years advocating to get Juneteenth recognized as a federal holiday Rachel DeSantis is a senior writer on the music team at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2019 ...

Opal Lee has been described as the "grandmother of the movement" to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.. In 2016, at 89 years old, Lee, a former teacher and lifelong activist, walked from her home ...

In 2016, civil rights leader Opal Lee, then 89, laced up her sneakers for the 1,400-mile trek from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., hoping to ask President Barack Obama to make ...

More than 80 years have passed since a racist mob destroyed Opal Lee’s family home in Fort Worth, Texas, but the 97-year-old said she still remembers the White crowd that forced her family out ...

Opal Lee, the Grandmother of Juneteenth, sat down with ABC News for the first interview inside her new home. ABC News. It was June 19, 1939, when Opal Lee remembers her parents sending her to a ...

Opal Lee, 95, helped make Juneteenth a national holiday. Now she wants to use it as an opportunity for education, healing and celebration.

Lee has been on a mission to change those stats since 2016, when she launched Opal’s Walk 2 D.C. at the end of President Barack Obama’s second term in office.

Opal Lee, left, applauds during a ceremony before aising the first wall to her new home on her family’s former lot in Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday, March 21, 2024.

Opal Lee's annual Walk for Freedom is just the beginning, Grandmother of Juneteenth says 03:59. DALLAS — The Grandmother of Juneteenth is sharing the love this year: the annual Opal's Walk for ...

Opal Lee sits in a rocking chair while waiting to give interviews on the porch of her new home in Fort Worth, Texas, Friday, June 14, 2024. (AP Photo/LM Otero) ...

Opal Lee, left, who helped make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday, poses with her portrait after it was unveiled in the Texas Senate Chamber, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023, in Austin, Texas. (AP ...