![\"Opal](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dovqinqya5y68dkg.jpg\")
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FORT WORTH, Texas<\/strong> – The granddaughter of Fort Worth’s Opal Lee, who was by her side on the journey to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, is running for Congress.<\/p>\n Even if she wins the March primary, however, Dione Sims faces an uphill battle against the District 25 incumbent.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dione Sims for Congress From her days at Southwest High School in Fort Worth, to earning a business degree at Texas Wesleyan University, to starting a non-profit in 2000 called Unity Unlimited, Sims has been active in her community for some time.<\/p>\n “When I started that nonprofit, it was based on a youth event, getting young people together,” said Sims.<\/p>\n Now, she’s on the verge of a campaign to represent that community in Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n The kickoff for that campaign is set for Saturday, Jan. 10., in Forest Hill at 4 p.m.<\/p>\n Sims says she\u2019s focused on fundraising and building a strong team of supporters.<\/p>\n Key campaign issues <\/p>\n Some of the issues she calls key to her campaign:<\/p>\n “Having a living and prevailing wage; being able to have healthcare that you can afford; to be able to buy food and fuel; and then education. We can\u2019t run away from technology. Our kids’ education is going to be really important,” Sims said.<\/p>\n Her candidacy, she says, was borne out of her concern for families and people in general.<\/p>\n “We\u2019re seeing our freedoms being stripped left and right, and people who are supposed to be standing up and protecting those freedoms are causing problems,” Sims said.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the newly redrawn District 25, Sims and retired Navy veteran William Marks will face off in the Democratic primary.\u00a0The winner will take on longtime Republican incumbent Rep. Roger Williams.<\/p>\n The district was revised with a Republican-led effort to garner five new seats in Congress. The new boundaries absorbed parts of neighboring District 33, which led to U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey’s decision not to seek reelection.\u00a0<\/p>\n History supporting Opal Lee <\/p>\n As for her own life, Sims says something she never expected was the years-long venture assisting her grandmother, Dr. Opal Lee, on a journey that ultimately saw Juneteenth become a national holiday.<\/p>\n “The world, of course, wants to know what Miss Opal\u2019s reaction was. So I\u2019m telling her, just sitting at her table, and I\u2019m talking to her. I said, \u2018grandmother dear, I want to run for Congress. I\u2019ve decided to run for Congress.\u2019 And she said, \u2018ok, where\u2019s your stuff for me to hand out?\u2019 I said, \u2018well we haven\u2019t printed anything yet,\u2019” Sims recalled.<\/p>\n “That touched my heart,” Sims continued, “because this is something she saw for me a long time ago.”<\/p>\n The Source:<\/b> Information in this article comes from FOX 4 coverage with Dione Sims.<\/p>\n Fort Worth<\/a>Texas Politics<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas – The granddaughter of Fort Worth’s Opal Lee, who was by her side on the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":505195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,50,7375,358,3187,58894,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-505194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fortworth","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-tarrant-county","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-tx-politics","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115868617246885175","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/screenshot-2026-01-09-173008.png\")
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Battle for District 25 <\/p>\n