More than 6,700 students graduated from the University of North Texas this past weekend, but one degree garnered particular attention: an honorary doctorate presented to Fort Worth’s Opal Lee, known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth” for her years of advocacy for the day’s federal holiday designation.
The 95-year-old’s honor was bestowed Sunday in the UNT Coliseum during the university’s doctoral and master’s ceremonies.
It wasn’t the first time Lee walked the stage at the university. Way back in 1963, she earned a master’s degree in education at what was then known as North Texas State University.
It’s just the latest accolade in a whirlwind of celebrations for Lee. In February, she traveled to Austin to see her portrait unveiled in the Texas Senate Chamber, where it will be permanently displayed.
Fort Worth’s planned National Juneteenth Museum is designed by the New York office of Denmark-based Bjarke Ingels Group. [Rendering courtesy City of Fort Worth]
But perhaps the ultimate monument to Lee’s legacy will take shape in Fort Worth, with the planned $70 million National Juneteenth Museum, slated to be built in Fort Worth’s Historic Southside neighborhood.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers in Galveston informed enslaved Black people that they were free—two years after Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It became a federal holiday on June 17, 2021.
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Slated to be built in Fort Worth's Historic Southside neighborhood, the planned $70 million museum will get the city funding once the balance for the project has been raised. Designed by the New York office of Denmark-based Bjarke Ingels Group, the building will house the museum on its second level, with a business incubator, restaurant, 250-seat amphitheater, and storefronts at ground level. “Literally and figuratively, it was designed to be a beacon of light in an area that has been dark for a very long time,” says Jarred Howard, principal of the project's developer.
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A portrait of Fort Worth's Opal Lee—known as the "Grandmother of Juneteenth" for her advocacy of the federal Juneteenth holiday—was unveiled Wednesday in the Texas Senate Chamber in Austin, where it will be permanently displayed. “Change somebody’s mind because minds can be changed,” 95-year-old Lee told reporters after the ceremony, according to NBC DFW. “If people have been taught to hate they can be taught to love, and it is up to you to do it.”
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Singer with sore throat? Dancer with damaged knee? Actor with active infection? You're all in luck—the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth is offering free health care for performing artists through late April. Funded by an anonymous donor, the free clinic is being provided by UNT HSC's Performing Arts Medicine Clinic, whose on-site physicians treat dancers, actors, vocalists, and instrumentalists of all ages and skill levels.
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Demolition has begun at the museum's site in Fort Worth's Historic Southside neighborhood, with plans to break ground for the museum later this year. At a media event Saturday, the museum's new executive strategist, Dr. Lauren Cross (seen above with Opal Lee), was introduced and new renderings of the museum were unveiled.
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UNT and Dallas-based communications tech company COMSovereign are partnering to develop and launch a new 5G edge-centric infrastructure test platform, funded in part by a grant from the North Central Texas Council of Governments. With the new program, UNT's Dr. Kamesh Namuduri says his team will "be able to expand our focus on wireless connectivity and research into Advanced Air Mobility technologies including UAVs, where UNT is already actively engaged with an expanding network of industry and government partners."
