FILE - Mayoral candidate U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee speaks to supporters during an election watch party, Nov. 7, 2023, at Bayou Place in Houston. Longtime U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who helped lead federal efforts to protect women from domestic violence and recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday, has died Friday, July 19, 2024, after battling pancreatic cancer, according to her chief of staff. (Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who introduced legislation to make Juneteenth a national holiday, has died. She was 74.

Her death was announced by her family on Friday night. The statement, which was released by her office, did not include a cause of death, but Jackson Lee said in June that she was being treated for pancreatic cancer.

The Democrat was first elected in 1994, and served on the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees. In March, she defeated a primary challenger, former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards, for her House seat.

June 19 marks the day when the last enslaved African Americans were ordered freed after Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, in 1865.

“I want to make Juneteenth a federal holiday to commemorate the end of chattel slavery, America’s original sin, and to bring about celebration, crushing racial divide down to a point of unity to this Earth,” Jackson Lee said as President Joe Biden prepared to sign the measure in 2021.

Born in the New York City borough of Queens, Jackson Lee graduated from Yale University and received a law degree from the University of Virginia.

She moved to Texas after her husband, Elwyn Lee, took a position at the University of Houston. They had two children. She ran for Congress after serving on the Houston City Council.

(Mike Dorning contributed to this report.)

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