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Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who spoke at the Law School’s Final Exercises in 2001, is pictured in a photo with her classmates from the Black American Law Students Association at the Law School in 1974.

These photos are courtesy of the UVA Law archives.

Sheila Jackson Lee, a 1975 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, championed efforts to promote equality during her 30-year career in Congress.

She passed away on Friday from pancreatic cancer at the age of 74.

Jackson Lee, who was active in the Black American Law Students Association at the Law School, represented Texas’ Houston-based 18th District, a Democratic stronghold, since 1994.

Before her time in Congress, she served on Houston’s City Council and as a municipal judge.

In Congress, she was a lead sponsor of the legislation that made Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, and announced that more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free.

“I thought about those slaves, who were born, lived, and died, and never were honored, and never knew freedom,” Jackson Lee told TV station KHOU at a Juneteenth prayer service in Houston in 2022.

President Biden said in a statement, “Always fearless, she spoke truth to power and represented the power of the people of her district in Houston with dignity and grace.

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