In 2016, at the age of 89, Opal Lee moved from her home in Fort Worth to Washington to help Juntaint make a federal holiday, which was finally in 2021. And for almost 20 years, she ruled modestly. Museum of the Juvenile in a property on Rosedale Street, which also serves as the setting for the 2020 film Miss Juneteenth.
But Lee, now 95, is known as the “grandmother of the Juneteenth” – or more affectionately as “Ms. Opal ”wants a more permanent institution to celebrate the end of slavery in the United States.
This vision is approaching reality as plans move forward for the National Museum on the Eleventh Day, a $ 70 million project that aims to put a shovel in the ground before the end of the year and open in time for the June 16 holiday in 2024
The 50,000-square-foot museum, designed by architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG, will investigate events around June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas, issued General Order No. 3, which tells people of the state that – in accordance with the Proclamation of Emancipation – “all slaves are free”. The 13th Amendment, ratified months later, removes slavery in the last four border states, which were not subject to President Abraham Lincoln’s order.
“The plans are beautiful. It’s out of the chain, “Lee said in an interview. “June means freedom for me. We want people to understand the past, we don’t want it to be diluted. “
The museum, which will have a significant educational component, will also help ensure that the country does not allow slavery to “happen again”, added Lee, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. – And it could, if we are complacent.
The project, on the corner of Rosedale Street and Evans Avenue in Fort Worth, seeks to revive a neighborhood that was in decline in the 1960s after being separated by I-35W. A 2019 study by data firm MySidewalk found that the average household income in the area is about $ 26,000 and that one-third of residents live below the federal poverty line.
The development will include a business incubator to promote black entrepreneurship, a dining hall with cultural black cuisine from local vendors, a flexible space for performances and a theater.
“It’s a neighborhood like many across the country that has fallen victim to neglect and neglect,” said Jared Howard, executive director of the project’s developer, Sable Brands, a marketing group. “For most of the last 30 years or so, the neighborhood has been depressed and poor. This development will be catalytic for the revival of his economic and cultural health. “
Howard added that the project hopes to strengthen a “black trade corridor” by attracting other new businesses to the area. The city is already developing the $ 13.2 million Evans & Rosedale town, north of the museum, with apartments and townhouses.
“For decades, the Juneteenth has been part of the fabric of our city,” Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said in a statement in 2021, “and this museum is a welcome addition to its incredible heritage.”
The museum has so far been funded by private donations from individuals, corporations and foundations; seeks state support. The aim is to offer free admission, guaranteed by fundraising and revenue-generating aspects of integrated development.
The museum initially plans an annual visit of 35,000, a 10% increase each year, Howard said.
The design of the building – in collaboration with local architects KAI, a minority-owned company – will use materials such as heavy timber and will be based on local architecture with gabled roofs and protruding porches. “There will be handmade quality,” said Douglas Aligood, BIG’s project partner, adding that he hopes the building will deliver a “spiritual uplift” in line with Lee’s example.
“She wanted to make sure the stories were told and she wanted to pay tribute to those whose backs we stood on,” Aligood said. “It’s not about her, it’s about our ancestors.”
Aligood said the project has a special resonance for him as a black architect. “This type of project in an African-American community focused on African-American culture is a unique opportunity in my career,” he said. “Historic Southside is thriving before the highway passes and splits in half. I don’t think one building will solve everything or change history, but it gives me a chance to contribute in a way that can be really significant. “
Although Galveston is the place in Texas that is most closely linked to Juntaine, “the national narrative is the one we hope to focus on,” said Dion Sims, Lee’s granddaughter and founder of the museum’s chief executive.
The museum will tell an extensive history of emancipation, highlighting allies such as the Quakers, who helped save the people for freedom in the north; white and black abolitionist societies; the southern subway in Mexico; and figures such as Sam Houston, who, as President of the Republic of Texas in 1837, banned the illegal importation of slaves into Texas.
“It’s a holiday for everyone because everyone can find themselves in the history of the Juneteenth,” Sims said. This is the mission and goal of the Juniorist National Museum.
Lee traveled two and a half miles each day in 2016 to symbolize the two and a half years between the adoption of the Emancipation Proclamation and June 19, 1865, when that message reached Galveston, where black Texans were still enslaved.
In 2020, she launched the Change.org petition, which collected more than 1.5 million signatures, which she presented to Congress. She was honored at the White House in 2021 when President Biden signed the bill defining the new holiday.
“You can’t talk too much about the country’s history,” she said. “You can’t talk too much about what is still widespread in our culture, in our national narrative, which affects so many lives today: systemic racism rooted in slavery. Freedom from slavery or the emancipation of the human spirit is what will help us rise. ”
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