By James Russell, Photo: Ken Sparks/Fort Worth Camera Club/Transform 1012 N. Main Street, Bloomberg City Lab, June 20, 2022
After years of start-and-stop efforts, citizens in Fort Worth, Texas, are taking steps to change the narrative about a darker time in their city’s history.
A project to transform a nearly century-old Ku Klux Klan meeting hall just received a $3 million boost from the federal government. The former KKK Klavern No. 101 auditorium — long an eyesore — was headed toward demolition as recently as 2019. Now it’s on its way to becoming an art and racial-healing center named after the only Black person documented to have been lynched in the city.
“I love the telling of history, be it good, bad, or ugly,” US Representative Marc Veasey, who helped secure the money in the $1.5 trillion spending bill President Joe Biden signed in March, said at a June 7 press conference. “We’re able to turn this story of oppression and racism and division and really make it something positive while still telling the story about what actually happened here during all those years.”
Comments (0)