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Opal Lee, the 96-year-old Texan whose efforts helped make Juneteenth a federal holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the U.S., became on Wednesday only the second Black person whose portrait will hang in the senate chamber of the state Capitol.
Lawmakers gave a lengthy standing ovation for Lee, who two years ago walked from Fort Worth to Washington and stood next to President Joe Biden as Juneteenth officially became the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was created in 1983.
In 2022, Lee was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Her painting will join those of other celebrated Texas figures on the walls of the 135-year-old Capitol, where nearly a dozen Confederate markers remain in and around the building. Lee, who is from Fort Worth and often called the “ grandmother of Juneteenth,” joins the late U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan as the only two Black Texans to have portraits in the Senate chamber.
Jordan’s portrait was hung in 1973.
