The planned National Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth picked up a big donation this week, bringing it closer to its $70 million fundraising goal.
The museum announced a donation of $2 million from Fort Worth-based Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, which will have naming rights for part of the museum.
With Tuesday’s announcement, the museum has met the halfway point of its capital campaign. A groundbreaking is planned for later this year, and the museum is set to open in 2026.
Once it opens, the museum will share the story of both slavery and emancipation, telling the story of Juneteenth while exploring the larger theme of global freedom. Included in plans are galleries, a 250-seat amphitheater, a food hall that features emerging chefs and a business incubator.
Museum officials have said the museum will serve as a cultural hub in Fort Worth and economic driver for the city’s Historic Southside, where the museum will be built at the corner of Rosedale Street and Evans Avenue.
“The museum will be a physical example of how implementing a culturally engaging learning center can transform minds and transform communities,” Jarred Howard, the museum’s president, said on the organization’s website.
Juneteenth recognizes the day in 1865 that Union troops arrived in Galveston to inform enslaved people of their freedom, about 2½ years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Black Americans, especially in Texas, have celebrated the day for decades, but interest in Juneteenth has grown in recent years, particularly after the death of George Floyd and the resulting protests over police brutality.
Opal Lee, known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” grew up in Texas and recalled celebrating the holiday by picnicking with her family, first in Marshall and later in Fort Worth. In 1939, when she was 12, a mob of 500 white supremacists set fire to her family’s home in Fort Worth and destroyed it. Lee and her family were forced to flee.
That event catapulted her into a career as an educator and activist. In 2016, Lee made her way from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., walking 2½ miles in several cities along the way to represent the 2½ years it took for news of emancipation to reach Galveston.
In 2021, with Lee by his side, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill declaring Juneteenth a national holiday. Lee was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.
At an event celebrating Juneteenth in 2023, Lee said honesty and education about America’s past are crucial.
“We can’t hide the truth. The good, the bad, the ugly,” she said. “They need to know.”
Related:Opal Lee among 8 women to be inducted into Texas Women’s Hall of Fame