US Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a strong progressive voice in the Democratic Party who was outspoken on African-American and women’s rights, has died at 74, her family announced on X late on Friday.
Jackson Lee of Texas had announced last month that she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was undergoing treatment. According to US media, Jackson Lee, who represented parts of Houston, introduced legislation in the House of Representatives to make “Juneteenth” a federal holiday commemorating the end of the legal enslavement of Black Americans.
Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when a Union general informed a group of enslaved people in Texas that they had been made free two years earlier by President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War.
