This former KKK headquarters in Texas is being transformed into a center of arts and culture

Photo byTransform 1012

A former Texas-based headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan is being converted into an arts center after being purchased by a non-profit coalition.

The building, which was home to one of the largest KKK chapters in America, will be renamed after Fred Rouse, the first lynching victim in Fort Worth.

In 1921, white union workers went on strike at the meatpacker Swift & Company in Fort Worth, Texas. Rouse -- a Black man and father -- was hired as a butcher by the company to replace those striking.

When Rouse reported to work on a December morning, he was beaten mercilessly with iron bars by white union workers, who accused him of betraying their strike.

Five days later, while recovering from the attack at a local hospital, Rouse was ambushed and dragged out of the hospital by the union workers once again. That night, Rouse was lynched roughly a mile away from the former KKK headquarters. He became the only reported Black victim of lynching in Fort Worth, according to the Equal Justice Initiative’s Lynching in America project.

Fort Worth has a history of racism and racial violence that in the words of the very first person who I told about the project, who is a member of one of the founding families of Fort Worth, it has never dealt with, it has never reckoned with. So, this building becomes an opportunity,” said Daniel Banks, board chair of Transform 1012 and co-founder of the arts and service group DNAWORKS, which is based in the city.

The century-old building was one of the largest reminders of a radically racist, not-so-distant time in Texas, which is something Transform 1012 hopes to change for the better.

From now on, the three-story building will serve a creative purpose under its new name -- the Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing.

Transform 1012 N. Main Street (Transform 1012), a Texas-based non-profit coalition, is thrilled to announce B-arn-S Architects + ch_studio as their architect and design partners to transform the former Ku Klux Klan Klavern No. 101 Auditorium in Fort Worth into The Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing in an act of reparative justice," wrote the Transform 1012 press release.

The design team’s goals for the building reflect Transform 1012’s sentiments when acquiring the building in 2021—the space should not be demolished, it should instead be transformed through adaptive reuse to represent and serve the communities targeted by the KKK and to promote community healing."

The plans for the Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing include a performance space, museum exhibits, and a resource center for LGBTQ youth.

Transform 1012 has already received $3 million in federal funding for the project and the building is expected to open to the public in 2025.

"Five, ten years from now, I see joy," said Fred Rouse III, the grandson of Fred Rouse and coalition board member. "I see this space bringing a lot of communities together, giving everybody a place of refuge."