Stephen Montoya
Opal Lee proudly displays produce from the school's garden.
If there’s one thing Opal Lee is known for outside of being the Grandmother of Juneteenth, it’s hard work and dedication as a teacher, counselor, and activist.
Being principal for the day at the IDEA Achieve charter school in Haltom City on Monday, however, was a first for the North Texas icon.
Lee, 96, along with IDEA Achieve head principal Giovanni Outram, took on the roles of mentors as students displayed their school’s vegetable garden with pride.
The garden, which spans nearly a half-acre in size, is actually used to supplement the food at the school’s cafeteria. According to Outram, the students pick, wash and eat the vegetables from the garden, which gives them a sense of pride. It was in a similar garden that Lee says she remembers working as a child.
“When I was growing up in Texarkana Arkansas, we had a kitchen garden right out the back door, so whatever was growing there, is what the family ate,” said Lee, the 2022 Fort Worth Inc. Person of the Year.
Lee said she remembers a truck patch on the north side of the house her family used as a vegetable surplus to sell at the local market on Saturdays. The rest of the 40 acres, she said, was planted with items like cotton, corn, peanuts, and cucumbers, just to name a few. “Then there were orchards, … I tell you, I didn’t know any better,” she said with a smile of naivete. “I loved every minute of it.”
Lee says the garden was a major part of her and her family’s food source since her grandparents had 19 children, including three sets of twins to feed and raise.
Opal is still farming, in fact. Not far from her house is Opal’s Farm, where produce is distributed to the hungry through food banks, including the one she started at her church, Baker Chapel AME Church, which she has been a member of since 1937, two years before attackers burned her family's home to the ground.
Stephen Montoya
After reminiscing in the garden, Lee was escorted to the school’s gymnasium by the staff and the students, so she could read one of her books, “Juneteenth,” to a class of elementary students. After she was done with the reading, she answered questions from students.
One of the students asked the civil rights icon what one of her proudest achievements was.
“One day I decided to walk from Fort Worth to Washington D.C.,” she responded. “I thought if I took that 1,400-mile trek, someone would take notice of what I was doing and ask why. They did and on June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed Senate Bill 475, making Juneteenth the 11th federal holiday.”
Lee’s answer was met with thunderous applause. But this wasn’t the only accolade Lee would receive this week. On Sunday, she was also presented with the African Film Festival 2023 Legendary Award. In 2021, a Congressional delegation, led by Fort Worth Democrat Marc Veasey, recognized Opal for a dedication to the cause of civil rights and racial equality by nominating her for the Nobel Peace Prize, the ultimate recognition from the international community.
“To reach your greatest potential, you have to study hard,” she told the students. “Obey your teachers, obey your parents, and one day when you reach the age of 35, you can be president of the United States of America.”