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 University of Virginia School of Law who championed efforts to promote equality during her 30-year career in Congress, died Friday from pancreatic cancer. She was 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, after serving on Houston’s City Council and as a municipal judge.

In Congress, she was a lead sponsor of legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021. The date 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 Joe Biden called Jackson Lee “unrelenting” in her leadership.

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

Visit the School of Law’s website for more about Jackson Lee, her time at UVA and her efforts on behalf of racial justice and equity.