
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 ...
09/10/2026
September 10 2026, 06:00 (PDT) Dolby Expands Dolby OptiView Platform with New Capabilities at IBC 2026
New Sports Intelligence helps providers better unders...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
25/09/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
25/09/2026
Infront has named Ronald den Hollander as CEO of its Host Broadcast Services (HBS) subsidiary, effective 1 October 2026. The appointment follows the previously ...
25/09/2026
The North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) will hold Cyber University 2.0, a full-day cybersecurity summit for the broadcast and media industries, on Tu...
25/09/2026
Alpha Networks and Ateme have delivered a joint video platform for the digital d...
25/09/2026
Encompass Digital Media has announced the migration of multiple Viaplay free-to-air channels - TV3, TV6, TV8, and TV10 - to its Altitude Scheduling platform. Al...
25/09/2026
NAB Show New York 2026 will take place October 21-22 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. Registration is open at nabshow.com/newyork.
Th...
25/09/2026
NHL Network has announced its studio programming lineup for the 2026-27 regular ...
25/09/2026
Clear-Com has announced that First Baptist Nashville has upgraded its production communications with a Clear-Com intercom system as part of a sanctuary technolo...
25/09/2026
Broadcast Management Group (BMG) has deployed EVS XT-VIA live video production s...
25/09/2026
BBright, a Hexaglobe Group company, has announced that dotCentral has joined as a sales and support partner in the United States.
BBright's portfolio cover...
25/09/2026
MeyerPro delivered audio, video, broadcast, and LED production for the Acumatica Summit 2026 at the Seattle Convention Center's Summit Building, January 25-...
25/09/2026
The Professional Women's Hockey League has announced its inaugural All-Star Weekend, to be held Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. The...
25/09/2026
The 2026 Presidents Cup is underway at Medinah Country Club outside of Chicago with Team USA and an International Team of men's golfers facing off for four ...
25/09/2026
Warner Bros. Discovery's Atlanta hub hosted a day of discussion on REMI prod...
25/09/2026
Algorithm update & new DVA vibrato-detection engine
A new flagship version of Antares' iconic pitch-correction software has arrived, and along with a co...
25/09/2026
New flagship unit to arrive in early 2027
Two notes Audio Engineering have revealed that a new and improved version of their hugely popular reactive load bo...
25/09/2026
AI-free mixing tool gets an upgrade
Launched in October 2025, Tim Exiles Finalist is an algorithmic mixing tool that's been designed for those who don...
25/09/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Mobile Test Summit 2026 puts the spotlight on 6G - registrations...
25/09/2026
In our latest blog, Tim Pearson reflects on IBC 2026 and considers the main learnings against an industry that saw AI finally coming out of the labs and into pr...
25/09/2026
Digital Anarchy Releases Newest Version of its Real-Time Skin Retouching Tool fo...
25/09/2026
Blackmagic Design Used on More Than 50 Summer Films in 2026
Brie Clayton September 25, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image: Disclosure Day
Blackmagic Design p...
25/09/2026
How I Automated Social Media Resizing in After Effects - Free Script
Graham Quince September 25, 2026
0 Comments
If your text keeps getting cut off on...
25/09/2026
IBC has unveiled the winners of the prestigious IBC2026 Innovation Awards at an event held at the RAI Amsterdam on Sunday 13 September, honouring collaborative ...
25/09/2026
IBC2026 brought the global media, entertainment and technology community together for four days of business, innovation and collaboration at the RAI Amsterdam. ...
25/09/2026
Lightware testing has revealed that each USB-C port on Apple's new MacBook Neo consumes three of the seven USB tiers available under the USB specification, ...
25/09/2026
Lightware is supporting educational institutions in building modern learning environments by combining professional training with education-focused AV technolog...
25/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
25/09/2026
Long-Standing Customer Renews Multiyear Contract for VO's Secure Video Player, Content Security, and Device Monitoring Solutions
Viaccess-Orca (VO), a glob...
25/09/2026
Automate Video Progress Bars in After Effects - No Keyframes!
Graham Quince September 24, 2026
0 Comments
Learn how to create an automated video playb...
25/09/2026
Friday 25 September 2026
How to watch an unmissable weekend of women's football on Sky Sports and NOW
Sky Sports and NOW will broadcast seven live games f...
25/09/2026
Friday 25 September 2026
YAGA trailer released, coming exclusively to Sky and N...
25/09/2026
Watch this space: a new strategic direction for UK media. Arqiva has submitted its response to the Governments Green Paper on the future of television distribut...
25/09/2026
Want to be part of this year's Late Late Toy Show?
Final call for applications in search for this year's stars
The most wonderful night of the year is...
24/09/2026
Broadcast Management Group (BMG) is supporting Virginia Public Media (VPM), the ...
24/09/2026
RED Digital Cinema's RED V-RAPTOR [X] and RED V-RAPTOR XL [X] cameras with the Phantom Track feature are the first cameras to receive GhostFrame Pro Certifi...
24/09/2026
Bringing together the full family of networks, FOX Sports is also adding Tubi, F...
24/09/2026
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) has unveiled...
24/09/2026
The blog collects SVG's reporting on AI across U.S. and European sports broadcasting
Since SVG launched the AI Innovation Lab in April to advance the devel...
24/09/2026
SVG's annual TranSPORT conference, which will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 20 in...
24/09/2026
The self-built Master Control Room has cut streaming operations incident-respo...
24/09/2026
Ortana Media Group, the software systems integrator behind the Cubix workflow platform, has connected AudioShake's audio separation models to ScorePlay thro...
24/09/2026
AudioShake has released Multi-Speaker 2.0, the company's newest Multi-Speaker model, which removes 75% more noise and offers 32% better separation of overla...
24/09/2026
By Jon Morgan, Founder and Executive Producer, Ryval Studios
For Major League B...