Stephen Montoya
"I'm a happy camper," says Opal Lee.
The optimistic rays from the sun illuminated a busy construction site in Fort Worth during what was supposed to be a rainy Thursday morning at 940 E. Annie Street.
Camera crews along with city officials traversed the wet grounds that will soon be the site of the new home for Opal Lee, the famed civil rights activist and educator. A series of lumber frames lay waiting for volunteers from the Trinity Habitat For Humanity team to raise for the Grandmother of Juneteenth. And although this ceremony is important in that it will be Lee’s new home, most, if not all of the attendees, know this means more than a roof over her head.
More than 80 years ago, this was the very spot where Lee and her family lived when she was 12 years old. An angry mob burned the home to the ground. As Lee tells it, the day that happened was June 19. Last fall, this very plot of land was gifted to Lee as a present for her 97th birthday from Trinity Habitat.
“I found out that Habitat owned it. I offered to buy it, but they wouldn't sell it to me. They gave it to me,” she told CBS 11 in October.
Lee was the 2022 Fort Worth Inc. Person of the Year, so honored for her life's work in seeing Juneteenth become a federal holiday. She was at the White House when President Joe Biden signed the bill marking Juneteenth the 11th federal holiday celebrated every June 19.
Stephen Montoya
A piece of property that once had a stigma surrounding it has become a beacon of perseverance and hope.
Trinity Habitat did better than merely gift the property to Lee. In tandem with Texas Capital and HistoryMaker Homes, Trinity Habitat began the process of gathering resources to rebuild her home. Texas Capital will provide the furniture for the home.
More than 80 years later, a piece of property that once had a stigma surrounding it has become a beacon of perseverance and hope.
“If you've heard her speak about her family story and the tragedies that she's lived through and the racism that she's faced in this city, this is our chance to completely start over and give her the home that she so deserves to be proud of in her community,” Mayor Mattie Parker said during the wall raising ceremony. “You’ve shown the world about what it merely means to live with love and forgiveness and total inspiration.”
Gage Yager, CEO of Trinity Habitat, called the gathering "the second mob on this lot … just let that sink in. The first mob was filled with hate. We're filled with love. What a better story that is.”
Yager says he estimates the final completion date for this project to land to be the very apropos June 19.
A rendering of Lee’s new home shows a two-tone blue and white façade with three red brick footers that split into three white load supporting beams that hold up a front porch. Lee says now that she knows she’s moving she would like to see the home she has lived in for 50 years become a museum.
“I'm so delighted,” Lee said to the throng of supporters and media in attendance at the wall raising ceremony. “I'm a happy camper, and I hope I can keep on walking and talking and telling people that we are all one people. That's what we are, all one people. And the sooner we accept that, the better.”