
As the U.S. has experienced protests over the cause of civil rights for people of color for the past two months, the call to designate Juneteenth (June 19) as a national holiday has gained steam. But for one person, in particular, the campaign for a national commemorative day when slaves in Texas finally learned about their emancipation in 1865, has been ongoing for several years.
Miss Opal Lee, a 93-year old resident of Ft. Worth, Texas, has a long history of community outreach, and in 2016 decided to walk from Ft. Worth to Washington, D.C. (at 2.5 miles per day to represent the 2.5 years it took for news of the emancipation to reach Texas), gathering signatures along the way to present a petition to Congress designating Juneteenth as a national holiday.
It was a modest beginning for the first several years until recently when the nation reacted in horror to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparking weeks of protests. Attention became focused on Juneteenth, prompting a renewed call among many of the nation's leaders to designate it a national holiday.
Attention also turned to the 93-year old lady from Ft. Worth who had been advocating this cause with her march and petition.
We started out talking about 100,000 signatures and now we're saying let's take a million signatures to Congress to let them know that it's not just one little old lady in tennis shoes, she told the New York Times last month.
With COVID-19 shutting down much of daily life, the 2020 version of the annual march now designated as phase 2 of Miss Opal's walk was in danger of not taking place, according to Doug Johnston, founder and CEO of Artistic Visual Studios (AVS), a Dallas-based production company.
We couldnt do a march because of the [health] requirements with the city, he said. So we put a caravan together with people in cars following her as she walked. We had the city of Fort Worth mayor and the chief of police for the city of Fort Worth.
Now there are plans to expand this caravan into a march from Ft. Worth to Washington, D.C., this fall, starting in late August with the intention of submitting a petition with at least a minimum of one million signatures by early November to Congress to designate Juneteenth a national holiday.
AVS had been working with Miss Opal on the project before the protests and managed to gain the attention of Nike, which is sponsoring the caravan, and in addition, provided the wardrobe for a promotional video.
Whether or not legislation will pass anytime soon on the holiday designation, Johnston feels that the opportunity is there to promote the cause through unique storytelling.
We want to create awareness about the situation that [the bill] still hasnt passed yet, and then also basically to create that awareness, education all the way through that caravan, he said. So its more of an educational thing to bring awareness to people that dont know about Juneteenth, and for her to pop into each city, talk to the news outlets.
The live broadcast will be available on Ms. Opal's Facebook page (opalswalk2dc) and on local radio station 97.9 The Beat - Urban One | RL (www.thebeatdfw.com).
To cover the event, AVS is using Dejero's GateWay, WayPoint, CuePoint, EnGo and LivePlus app for reliable connectivity and high quality live video transmission.
AVS crew prepares for their live production using Dejero solutions (Image credit: AVS) Dejero's solutions have opened up a new world of opportunity for us, Johnston said. They've allowed us to cut the cords of the constraints we've experienced with limited connectivity. Now, whether we're in the studio, a fixed venue and especially on location, we can be so much more agile get even closer to the action, provide more vantage points and interviews on the move and most importantly, deliver enterprise level, crisp quality live productions for future multicultural events in a way that hasn't been delivered before.
Four Dejero EnGo mobile transmitters will serve AVS camera operators strategically positioned in the field as they broadcast live from the crowds and conduct interviews with supporters as they march. The Dejero LivePlus mobile app will also be accessible to further AVS crews on the ground via their smartphones, capturing multiple viewpoints to document the excitement and passion of the campaigners. Additionally, using the LivePlus mobile app on a smartphone, mounted on a selfie stick, will allow AVS to deliver exclusive live footage of Ms. Opal herself, up close, as she walks from the Fort Worth Convention Center to the Will Rogers Auditorium.
Using Smart Blending Technology, which aggregates diverse network technologies from multiple network operators, the Dejero EnGo dynamically and intelligently manages fluctuating bandwidth, packet loss and latency differences in real-time, meaning AVS will not need to be concerned with congested local cellular networks or any signal degradation to achieve the connectivity required for this quality live broadcast coverage.
A Dejero WayPoint receiver will provide AVS with the ability to switch between four simultaneous feeds from its studio in Dallas and reconstruct the video transported over multiple IP connections from the Dejero transmitters, decode HEVC and AVC, and output to SDI.
We're proud as a company to offer our clients, and the causes we support, a unique story-telling production service that truly captures the tone, atmosphere and sincerity of their stories in an intimate and impactful way, continued Johnston.
The technology that Dejero has provided will amplify our offering by helping us to deliver even richer content, especially in live and remote production situations; starting with Ms. Opal's walk , added Russell Lopez, business development at Artistic Visual Studios.
To enable AVS camera
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
23/06/2026
When we began planning our transition from an SDI-based infrastructure to a new ...
23/06/2026
Imagine Communications has announced the appointment of Greg Garmon as Senior Vice President, Americas Video Sales. Garmon will oversee account growth and busin...
23/06/2026
Snap has promoted Emma Wakely to Head of Sports and Media Partnerships, Americas, succeeding Anmol Malhotra, who has been elevated to Global Head of Content and...
23/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air MI New York's Major League Cr...
23/06/2026
The Universal Talent Identifier (HAND) has issued HAND IDs to 34 top projected prospects in the 2026 NBA Draft class, including AJ Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer, and...
23/06/2026
World Boxing has announced the launch of World Boxing TV, a subscription-based streaming platform built on the Joymo platform, offering live events, on-demand c...
23/06/2026
FloSports will stream 32 off-road motorcycle racing events on FloRacing, includi...
23/06/2026
SES has announced the expansion of its ASTRA TV platform in Spain with the addition of 14 regional channels in HD and UHD quality and the launch of new hybrid s...
23/06/2026
Appear ASA has announced its role in Rede Legislativa de R dio e TV's contri...
23/06/2026
LTN has announced that PBS has selected it as its IP video partner to modernize content distribution and contribution across more than 330 public television sta...
23/06/2026
Ease Live has announced that its graphics overlay platform is powering an interactive fan experience on Rally.TV, the official streaming platform of the FIA Wor...
23/06/2026
Chyron has announced updates to Chyron LIVE, its cloud-native live production pl...
23/06/2026
ESPN has announced ESPN Fan House, a fan engagement hub powered by Flowcode, launching in August ahead of the 2026 college football season. Publicis Sports will...
23/06/2026
The city's solid position in broadcast, entertainment, and sports attracted the major microphone manufacturer
Sennheiser Group is moving its Americas Regio...
23/06/2026
128 channels of signal routing & DSP
Announced just before the NAMM Show 2026, Violet Audio's latest digital audio matrix offers 128 channels of signal ...
23/06/2026
Latest Current expansion created by EPROM
Minimal Audio have just launched the latest Current Expansion, Memory Rites. Designed in collaboration with renown...
23/06/2026
Popular hardware EQ gets official plug-in emulation
Undertone Audio have just launched a new plug-in that brings one of their most popular hardware designs ...
23/06/2026
December 7, 2022
Colorfront (colorfront.com) - the multi-award-winning develope...
23/06/2026
April 23, 2026
NAB 2026, Las Vegas - the Academy and Emmy Award-winning develop...
23/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/06/2026
PlayBox Neo appoints Besco as Channel Reseller to establish a firm foothold in Asia Pacific's thriving high-tech export-driven economic boom
PlayBox Neo, t...
23/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/06/2026
LTN, a global leader in IP-based video transport and network services, today announced that PBS has selected LTN as its IP video partner to modernize and future...
23/06/2026
LiveU will introduce its Q Era to Australia and New Zealand for the first time at ABE2026 on Stand No. 25, (July 30 31). Leading the showcase is the LU900Q, a n...
23/06/2026
Miri Technologies Inc. has begun shipping its highly anticipated V410 live 4K video encoder/decoder for streaming, IP-based production workflows and AV-over-IP ...
23/06/2026
DHD audio reports the completion of an upgrade to the audio production facilities at the Galilee headquarters of Radio Tzafon. The station broadcasts two progra...
23/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/06/2026
Multifaceted Growth Executive Brings 20+ Years of Experience Leading Organizations Across Tech and M&E
Imagine Communications today announced the appointment ...
23/06/2026
Australians in Film and Screen Australia's talent development initiative UNT...
23/06/2026
Visual Productions Unveils RdmRelay2 Four-channel Relay Control at InfoComm 2026
Brie Clayton June 22, 2026
0 Comments
New Relay Solution Combines DMX, ...
23/06/2026
SMPTE Makes Its Standards Freely Accessible, Opening Standards Library to the Gl...
23/06/2026
Also starring Jonny Lee Miller, Sheldon Shepherd and Bel Powley, the ambitious f...
23/06/2026
The priority now is a clear and credible plan
June 23, 2026, Winchester, UK - Arqiva, the UK's leading communications infrastructure provider, welcomes tod...
23/06/2026
The RT Toy Show Appeal has raised over 31 million since its inception in 2020 ...
23/06/2026
News Highlights:
NVIDIA technology runs 81% of the TOP500 and 90% of the systems new to the list.
26 systems on the TOP500 adopted the NVIDIA Grace CPU, up ei...
23/06/2026
Companies are asking how to build specialized AI that fits with the way their workflows actually run.
The first wave of enterprise AI was about access. Compan...
23/06/2026
Newly identified molecule strengthens the eye's response to damage in retinal disease Scripps Research discovery finds that restoring the naturally occurrin...
22/06/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
22/06/2026
Cosm has announced the appointment of David Ho as Chief Legal Officer, a newly created executive role reporting to President and CEO Jeb Terry. Ho will oversee ...
22/06/2026
Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced the developm...
22/06/2026
Daktronics has completed an audio control system upgrade at Petco Park in San Di...
22/06/2026
Accelerate Media has named John Willi as President and announced the launch of the Accelerate Sports Network (ASN), a prep sports media and streaming platform c...