Dallas, TX
‘Juneteenth freed the people’: Opal Lee leads hundreds on freedom walk through Dallas
Opal Lee walked outside and waved. That was all it took. Crowds clamored for a glimpse. People shouted her name and snapped photographs as television crews aimed their cameras at her.
Wearing sunglasses, a blue T-shirt and red tennis shoes, Lee led hundreds Wednesday on her annual Opal’s Walk for Freedom, a 2.5-mile trek to celebrate Juneteenth.
This year’s walk moved from Lee’s hometown of Fort Worth to Dallas, but the 97-year-old “grandmother of Juneteenth” drew the same big crowds and adoration. Supporters wore T-shirts and carried signs bearing her image, and many clapped and waved as she walked by.
Juneteenth recognizes the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston to inform enslaved people of their freedom, about 2½ years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
“July 4 freed the land,” Lee said before the walk. “But Juneteenth freed the people.”
Black Americans, especially in Texas, have celebrated the day for decades, but interest in the holiday skyrocketed in recent years. 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, President Joe Biden, with Lee at his side, signed into law a bill declaring Juneteenth a national holiday.
Growing up, Tiffany Weaver, 45, said she celebrated the holiday with friends and family eating barbecue and playing outside. This year she joined Lee’s walk, which began at the African American Museum in Dallas’ Fair Park.
Weaver, who lives in Dallas, said she loves that Juneteenth is now celebrated on a larger scale.
“We weren’t free until we were all free,” she said. “This has been a long time coming.”
Stanton Brown, 32, of McKinney, who brought his infant and 4-year-old daughters to the walk, said he long knew about Juneteenth but only began celebrating the day in recent years.
“Freedom is really a mindset,” Brown said. “I want to honor the people who came before me and fought for freedom. I’m here because of them.”
As they walked, marchers clasped hands and some sang “This Little Light of Mine.” Parents pushed young children in strollers or carried them on shoulders, and Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders walked alongside marching band drummers and members of a Girl Scouts troop.
Traditional African dancers and drummers lined the route and walked next to Lee, flanked by Fort Worth’s Miss Juneteenth and a cluster of police officers.
Many fanned themselves from the heat, which hovered in the 80s for most of the walk, cooler than in past years.
Lee, who grew up in Texas, has recalled celebrating Juneteenth by picnicking with her family, first in Marshall and later in Fort Worth. In 1939, when she was 12, a mob of white supremacists set fire to her family’s home in Fort Worth and destroyed it. Lee and her family were forced to flee. The event shaped her life as an educator and activist.
Lee received a new home this month, courtesy of the community, on the same lot.
This year’s walk moved to Dallas to highlight the role Juneteenth has on other U.S. cities, Lee’s granddaughter, Dione Sims said. Cities around the world planned their own walks, including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City and Tokyo. Next year, the march will return to Fort Worth before heading to Washington, D.C., in 2026.
On Wednesday, Lee, who rode in a golf cart for part of the walk, said her work is far from over, and she urged supporters to tackle homelessness and climate change.
“If people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love,” she said. “We are all our brother’s keeper. It behooves us to act like it.”
How much do you earn? And how far does that paycheck really go?
In Dallas, a $100,000 salary is a figure that’s more than double the area’s individual median income, but nevertheless a useful benchmark for the region’s burgeoning business community. However — once taxes and the local cost of living is factored in — it has the effective purchasing power of around $80,000 according to a new financial report.
Consumer-focused fintech site SmartAsset worked the numbers on the country’s 69 largest cities, determining the “estimated true value of $100,000 in annual income” in each location by measuring federal, state and local taxes as well as local cost of living data, including on housing, groceries and utilities.
It used its own proprietary figures, as well as information from the Council for Community and Economic Research.
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Despite recent research suggesting North Texas has lately been losing some of its famous economic advantage — a major factor behind the region’s explosive growth — Dallas actually fared relatively well in SmartAsset’s analysis. Of the 69 cities, Dallas’ effective purchasing power, of $80,103 on the $100,000 salary, tied with Nashville to rank 22nd highest.
Like many cities in the report, Dallas also actually saw a year-over-year effective salary bump, likely because of slightly lower effective tax rates and living costs that have hewed closer to the national average. In 2024, the value of a $100,000 salary in Dallas came out to $77,197.
Other large Texas cities fared even better than Dallas. El Paso, where SmartAsset calculated the effective value of the $100,000 salary at nearly $90,300, ranked third highest overall.
San Antonio, where the effective value was around $86,400, ranked eighth. Houston, where the figure was around $84,800, ranked 10th, and Austin, where the figure was $82,400, ranked 17th.
Oklahoma City topped SmartAsset’s value ranking, with an effective salary of around $91,900, and Manhattan, which the website considered as its own city, came in with the lowest value, at around $29,400.
Dallas’ relatively strong effective value score won’t necessarily translate to the good life: Another financial report, published in November by the website Upgraded Points, determined that even a single adult with no kids needs a pre-tax salary of at least $107,000 to live “comfortably” in the Metroplex.
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Cardi B, one of hip-hop’s most outsize personalities — and one of its most reliable hitmakers — is coming to Dallas.
The New York City-born rapper broke through in 2017 with the hit single “Bodak Yellow,” launching a chart-topping run that soon included “I Like It” and the blockbuster hit “WAP.” Her Grammy-winning debut album, Invasion of Privacy, cemented her as a defining voice in contemporary rap, blending brash humor, confessional storytelling and club-ready production.
The 33-year-old’s success helped boost the profile of women in a genre long dominated by men, encouraging record labels to sign more female rappers. She has frequently teamed up with rising female artists, including GloRilla, FendiDa Rappa and “WAP” collaborator Megan Thee Stallion.
Cardi’s stop at American Airlines Center is part of the arena run supporting her second studio album, 2025’s Am I the Drama? Recent shows in the “Little Miss Drama Tour” have leaned into spectacle, with elaborate staging, surprise guest appearances and a set list that spans her entire career.
Fans can expect a high-energy performance built around booming trap beats, pop hooks and Cardi’s signature unfiltered banter — the same mix that has helped her sell out dates across the tour and turn concerts into party-like events.
DETAILS: March 7 at 7:30 p.m. at American Airlines Center in Dallas. Tickets start at $334.10, but some verified resale tickets are cheaper. ticketmaster.com.
Pop legend Diana Ross performs March 7 at the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma.
Sarah Hepola
OTHER CONCERTS
Bluesy psychedelic rock band All Them Witches performs March 7 at House of Blues Dallas.
Travis Pinson
ALL THEM WITCHES March 7 at 8 p.m. at House of Blues Dallas. ticketmaster.com.
DIANA ROSS March 7 at 8 p.m. at WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Okla. winstar.com.
RICH BRIAN March 7 at 8 p.m. at The Bomb Factory in Deep Ellum. axs.com.
TRACE ADKINS March 7 at 10 p.m. at Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth. billybobstexas.com.
AFROJACK March 8 at 3 p.m. at It’ll Do Club in Deep Ellum. eventbrite.com.
LITHE March 8 at 8 p.m. at House of Blues Dallas. ticketmaster.com.
CONAN GRAY March 10 at 8 p.m. at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth. ticketmaster.com.
MATISYAHU March 10 at 8 p.m. at the Granada Theater in Dallas. prekindle.com.
OUR LADY PEACE, WITH THE VERVE PIPE March 12 at 8 p.m. at Tannahill’s Tavern and Music Hall in Fort Worth. ticketmaster.com.
PAUL WALL March 12 at 9 p.m. and March 13 at 10 p.m. at Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth. billybobstexas.com.
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