The Amazing Woman Behind Juneteenth's Long Road To Becoming A National Holiday - Rachel Maddow
Rachel Maddow traces the personal story of 94-year-old activist Opal Lee, whose years-long crusade to make Juneteenth a national holiday was finally realized today when President Biden signed it into law. Aired on 06/17/2021.
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It's been 156 years! What took so long?? My grandmother would be celebrating that this finally happened, but she'd also be ashamed that it took so long... 
Nobody ever said anything, not my parents or my teachers and certainly not my grandmother. I went to school with all manner of kids, my best friend's mother came from Japan and my Sunday school teacher was black. My mother was always particularly friendly with that nice lady since she had a little boy who was in my mother's class - my mother taught the youngest kids and some of them - like my teacher's little son - cried, and my mother was looking for a way for him to be comfortable away from his Mom.
I was particularly close to my grandmother who was a world traveler, had all manner of friends, and my Dad took after her. My grandmother told me once that a neighbor of hers - when she was raising her 4 kids in the 1940s here in New York - gave her a hard time about her lack of prejudice! She said that this woman confronted her by saying "Hazel, one of your children is going to marry an Eskimo!" That must have been the most extreme minority that this idiot of a woman could think of! 
I graduated from a high school (also diverse, including foreign students) where religion classes were required - and we initially had to learn and were tested on The Ten Commandments. What I don't get is how the "Christian right" (who ought to know better if they take their Christianity seriously) can continue to overwhelmingly support the least "Christian" president in our entire history!
Wishing the same to you and your little one... 
słodkich snów przyjacielu! 
I certainly agree that Miss Opal is one amazing person, I don't have half of her qualities even now! She is the embodiment of "She persisted" and it choked me up to see her honored in the White House yesterday. I was so happy to see her dream come true. You are incredibly fortunate to know her. And I hope she knows that she now has supporters and admirers all over this country - including me in New York... 
