JOE BIDEN AWARDS PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM TO “GRANDMOTHER OF JUNETEENTH” MS. OPAL LEE

Ms. Opal Lee is one of 19 people to receive the United States’ highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by U.S. President Joe Biden. Educator and civil rights activist Ms. Opal Lee is known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth” for her efforts to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. “We’re a better nation because of you,” Biden told Lee at the ceremony. Declared a federal holiday in the U.S. in 2021, Juneteenth commemorates the Emancipation Proclamation’s enforcement and the liberation of the enslaved both in Texas and throughout the United States, which happened on June 19, 1865. With Ms. Opal Lee at the helm, a new National Juneteenth Museum, designed by BIG and Kai Enterprises, will open in Ms. Lee’s hometown of Fort Worth, TX, and will be dedicated to preserving the history of Juneteenth and legacy of freedom.