The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will donate $3 million to the construction of National Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.
The donation was announced at a gathering of community leaders and supporters in Fort Worth on Wednesday, Oct. 7 — which coincided with the 100th birthday of Dr. Opal Lee, the civil rights activist known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.”
“We celebrate all as brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the living God,” said Elder Michael A. Dunn, General Authority Seventy and president of the Church’s United States Southwest Area.
As part of the Church’s donation, plans for the museum include a genealogy center intended to help visitors discover and preserve family histories through experiences powered by FamilySearch, according to a news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
The genealogy center will place particular emphasis on helping preserve records and stories that have historically been difficult for many African American families to trace and document.
“For generations, slavery hid the names and stories of millions of African American ancestors,” Elder Dunn said, as reported by FortWorthReport.org. “Many organizations, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are now recovering and recording these histories as an act of honor and healing.”
In her brief remarks, Lee said this deed won’t go unnoticed.
“It’ll be where everybody can see how much you appreciated what we are doing in this community — and this is everybody’s contribution,” she said.
Dr. Opal Lee
For years, Lee campaigned for a national Juneteenth holiday to commemorate the day when news of emancipation reached enslaved Black Americans in Texas on June 19, 1865, more than two years after Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Her campaigning was successful, and in 2021, then-President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday in the United States.
Lee also operated a small museum inside her home for many years, which included artifacts related to Black history.
Once completed, the new 50,000-square-foot museum will include exhibition galleries, educational spaces, a theater, community gathering areas and resources designed to support both cultural preservation and neighborhood development.
“The National Juneteenth Museum is going to allow us to really help people everywhere understand what Dr. Lee has represented — her tenacity, her verve, her unrelenting quest to be able to bring truth and light to this story of our nation that still needs to be told,” Elder Dunn said.
This donation from the Church came after years of collaborative efforts in north Texas among community members and members of the Church. Church members and leaders have participated in local Juneteenth celebrations, supported the Opal Lee Walk for Freedom and served those in need in the community.
In addition to the $3 million donation toward the museum’s construction and the genealogy center, the Church delivered a semitruck with 38,000 pounds of food to the Midwest Food Bank in Fort Worth, Texas, on Wednesday, Oct. 7. The Midwest Food Bank and four other food pantries in the area will share the goods in the shipment.
Throughout 2026, as the United States celebrates its 250th year, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has celebrated with the donation of 250 food trucks donated to 250 food banks across the country.
A similar donation was unloaded by Latter-day Saint volunteers last month in Cedar Park, Texas.
The Church has also supported efforts to expand access to African American family history records through projects such as the Freedmen’s Bureau Project, the 10 Million Names Project and the International African American Museum in South Carolina.
