Joe Biden has gotten down on one knee to show respect and greet Opal Lee, the 94-year-old woman who is labeled as the “grandmother” of Juneteenth.
She has advocated Juneteenth for a long time and has finally reached her goal to make the day a federal holiday.
Juneteenth is a day that recognizes the end of slavery in America, signing it into law for June 19th. This is now the 11th national holiday says public sources. Opal Lee had received the greeting from the United States President, alongside the pen that he had used in order to sign the holiday into legislation.
Biden calls her the “grandmother of the movement” and comments “as my mother would say, ‘God, love her'”. He explains that we are “blessed to mark the day in presence of Ms Opal Lee” and gives us a background of her history.
When she was 12, a white mob had torched her family home that resided in Texas. This dated back to 1939. Ever since then, “such hate never stopped her any more than it stopped the vast majority of you I’m looking at from this podium.” Biden says while addressing the crowd.
He also asks the audience to give her a standing ovation because “she’s made it her mission to see that this day came. It was almost a singular mission.”
She traveled across the United States from Fort Worth Texas and to Washington DC back in 2016 in order to raise awareness about the historical date.
She has tried her best in order for the government to recognize it as a national holiday and finally gets the opportunity after the President signs it into law. It is truly iconic for both the nation and for Ms Opal Lee.
The president says that there needs to be a push in order to address the blatant racism that has been going on, and that “great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments. They don’t ignore those moments of the past. They embrace them.”
He continues, “The truth is, it’s not — simply not enough just to commemorate Juneteenth. After all, the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans didn’t mark the end of America’s work to deliver on the promise of equality; it only marked the beginning.”