A local nonprofit coalition announced on Tuesday that it had purchased the building at 1012 N. Main St., the edifice that was once used as a Ku Klux Klan meeting hall and has sparked controversy for decades.
Transform 1012 N. Main Street says it plans to establish The Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing, a place, organizers say will be “a space of truth, reconciliation, and liberation for the nation.” The repurposed building and its purpose honor the life a Black butcher in the Stockyards who was lynched by a white mob in Fort Worth in 1921, the same year construction of the building began.
Last month, the city marked the 100th anniversary of Rouse’s lynching with a historical marker and broke ground on a memorial at the site of his murder at 1000 NE 12th St.
The purchase was made possible by a grant from the Rainwater Charitable Foundation, a statement says.
“I envision a crossroads where all of Fort Worth can gather, where every cultural group feels a sense of belonging, of being seen, represented, and listened to,” says Daniel Banks, board chair and co-founder of DNAWORKS, a founding organization of Transform 1012. “Where we celebrate the richness of our individual cultures freely and openly; and where repairing past harm and damage leads to greater respect and appreciation, creativity, and love — of self and one another.”
Adaptive reuse plans include transforming the space into a vibrant cultural hub with a state-of-the-art performance space; arts training and programming; services for underserved and LGBTQ+ youth; exhibit spaces dedicated to social justice and civil rights; a makerspace and tool library for local DIY classes; meeting spaces for racial equity and leadership workshops and community events; an outdoor urban agriculture and artisan marketplace, and affordable live/work spaces for artists- and entrepreneurs-in-residence.