Even though she\u2019s been out of the spotlight, Lee spends her Sundays at Baker Chapel AME Church where she serves as a deaconess. Congregants gathered there Oct. 5 to throw her an early birthday party, which featured gifts, a celebratory video montage and dance performances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was surprised and thankful that they remember an old lady nearly 100 years old,\u201d Lee said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dione Sims said her grandmother is getting \u201cstronger and better,\u201d although the matriarch misses interacting with people on a daily basis. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was used to running to fix everybody\u2019s problems,\u201d Sims said. \u201cThe world still spins around even without her spinning on its axis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The family plans an intimate birthday celebration today, Sims added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lee spent decades advocating for Juneteenth to become a national holiday. In 2021, President Joe Biden signed it into law,<\/a> commemorating the day that Union soldiers rode to Galveston to inform enslaved Texans that they were free, approximately 2.5 years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1926, Lee was born in Marshall. Her father moved to Fort Worth during the Great Depression to find work. Eventually, Lee\u2019s mother and siblings followed.<\/p>\n When Lee was 12, her family moved into a predominantly white neighborhood. On June 19, 1939<\/a>, a racist mob of 500 people forced the family out of the home. She went on to attend I.M. Terrell High School, the first public school for Black students in Fort Worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lee returns to the public eye Oct. 11 for the sold-out Fort Worth\/Tarrant County NAACP 48th Annual Freedom Fund Celebration at I.M. Terrell Academy for STEM and VPA.\u00a0<\/p>\n The local NAACP will premiere a documentary spotlighting eight area civil rights leaders: Lee, Lorraine C. Miller<\/a>, Mattie Peterson Compton<\/a>, Rev. Floyd Moody<\/a>, Norma Roby<\/a>, Estella Williams<\/a>, Judge Louis Sturns<\/a> and the late Judge L. Clifford Davis<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n As Lee celebrates the latest milestone, she acknowledges the challenges she\u2019s overcome in life but expresses gratitude for all she\u2019s accomplished.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt hasn\u2019t always been sweet, but I survived it and I\u2019m grateful,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI want the youngsters to know that they can make it too. It\u2019s not going to be all smooth, but we have to take the bitter with the sweet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n David Moreno is the arts and culture reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n Fort Worth Report is certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative<\/a> for adhering to standards for ethical journalism.<\/p>\n Republish This Story<\/p>\n
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