U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, UVA Law Alumna, Dies of Cancer at 74

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a 1975 graduate of the College of Virginia College of Legislation who championed efforts to advertise equality throughout her 30-year profession in Congress, died Friday from pancreatic most cancers. She was 74.

Jackson Lee, who was lively within the Black American Legislation College students Affiliation on the Legislation College, represented Texas’ Houston-based 18th District, a Democratic stronghold, since 1994, after serving on Houston’s Metropolis Council and as a municipal choose.

In Congress, she was a lead sponsor of laws making Juneteenth a federal vacation in 2021. The date commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, and introduced that greater than 250,000 enslaved Black individuals within the state had been free.

“I thought of these slaves, who had been born, lived and died, and by no means had been honored, and by no means knew freedom,” Jackson Lee advised TV station KHOU at a Juneteenth prayer service in Houston in 2022.

President Joe Biden referred to as Jackson Lee “unrelenting” in her management.

“All the time fearless, she spoke fact to energy and represented the facility of the individuals of her district in Houston with dignity and charm,” Biden stated in a press release.

Go to the College of Legislation’s web site for extra about Jackson Lee, her time at UVA and her efforts on behalf of racial justice and fairness.