Transform 1012 N. Main Street Acquires Former KKK Hall As Future Site Of A Community Healing Space

Arlington TX

14 January, 2022

7:04 PM

Description

By Marcheta Fornoff, Fort Worth Report January 14, 2022 An auditorium built by one of the most infamous hate organizations in America is one step closer to being reincarnated as a community center for art and healing. Klavern 101 was built in the 1920s, burned down and was rebuilt shortly after. Throughout its history, the building also hosted boxing matches, concerts and businesses, but has sat vacant for several years. It is now owned by a coalition of art and nonprofit organizations called Transform 1012 N. Main Street. Daniel Banks and Adam McKinney dreamt up the idea a few years ago and made their hopes public in 2019, when the previous owners applied for a permit to demolish the building. The pair are co-founders of another nonprofit called DNAWORKS that aims to use art as a vehicle for conversation and healing. One of their most well-known projects is the Fort Worth Lynching Tour, which honors the memory of Fred Rouse. Rouse, a Black man, was lynched in 1921 by a white mob who removed him from his hospital bed where he was recovering from another mob attack at a meatpacking plant. Researching that project is how they discovered the building's origin story. As the country reconsiders who should be memorialized in public monuments, the moment is ripe to examine history and reclaim spaces that were once visible markers of hatred, Banks said. Civil rights icon Opal Lee, who was instrumental in Juneteenth's recent designation as a federal holiday and who still works with families at the food bank she once chaired, said she was "jubilant" when she was first approached about the project. Though she's 95 now, the past remains fresh in Lee's mind. In 1939, a white mob forced her family from their new home and burned their furniture. Lee isn't certain if members of the mob had ties with the KKK, but the Associated Press described 500 people surrounding the Black family's new home in a white neighborhood. Noting the recent legislation that restricts how educators teach history in the state, Lee is thankful that there will now be a prominent landmark for the people of Fort Worth to learn its history."The rest of our history is taught. I see no reason why some could be taught and some left," Lee said in a phone interview. "You take the good with the bad and the bad with the good. It certainly hasn't all been good, and there's no reason why we should sugarcoat it. We need to face what actually happened and heal from it so that we can make this country the best in the whole wide world. And until we do that, we ain't done nothing." To read the full article, click here. Fort Worth Report is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that produces factual, in-depth journalism about city and county government, schools, healthcare, business, and arts and culture in Tarrant County. Always free to read; subscribe to newsletters, read coverage or support our newsroom at fortworthreport.org.