“We\u2019re trying to turn a site that was meant for evil and tragic terror and racial violence that was here, and we\u2019re trying to turn that site into a site for peace,” said Fred Rouse III, standing on a plot in Fort Worth\u2019s Northside neighborhood.<\/p>\n
The site, at the corner of NE 12th Street and Samuels Avenue, was where Rouse\u2019s grandfather was murdered more than 100 years ago, lynched and hung from the \u201cdeath tree\u201d that has since been torn down.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandfather, when he was hung from that tree, on this land, he hung there all day. There were hundreds of people out here, people watching\u2014 nobody did anything. And so, the next morning is when family came and cut him down from the tree,” he said.<\/p>\n
That was on Dec. 11, 1921. It is the only known lynching of a Black man in Tarrant County.<\/p>\n
The Mr. Fred Rouse Memorial received its final funding $232,377 from the Fort Worth City Council a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Rouse III said they have already started ordering construction materials and expect to have a memorial in place by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
Bradley Borougerdi, a history professor at Tarrant County College, first began the process of erecting a memorial in 2018. He had just learned of Fred Rouse after seeing his name etched in steel at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d been teaching about this stuff for over a decade of my life,” Borougerdi said. \u201cWhen I saw this plaque that said Fred Rouse, 1921… it just really stirred something up in me.\u201d<\/p>\n He remembered thinking that if he didn\u2019t know about it, as an expert in the field with the highest education degree possible, others probably didn\u2019t either.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, what chance does a business person, or a plumber or an electrician, or maybe somebody who didn\u2019t go to college have of knowing about this?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And Borougerdi said it is important to know.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I\u2019ve found is, when we talk about these difficult issues, they bring us together more,” he said.<\/p>\n