Fort Worth resident Candice Puente sees the transformation of a former Ku Klux Klan auditorium as a cultural bridge for her city and community. 

It’s why she encouraged her parents, who are longtime Eastside residents, to spend their evening listening and voicing their thoughts on the project. 

The nonprofit Transform 1012 N. Main Street held its second community conversation at Blank Space Fort Worth on East Lancaster Avenue Oct. 1. Residents said they were eager for a safe space where everyone, regardless of their backgrounds, can come together.

Although the Transform 1012 N. Main Street project is in Northside, Puente said it was impactful to see the project leaders come to the neighborhood she grew up in.

Ayesha Ganguly, founding coalition vice chair, believes it is important to receive community input in a citywide effort, so all residents can feel connected to the space just north of downtown Fort Worth. 

“Because when is it that we are ever asked when large projects worth millions happen, right? It’s rare that the citizens of that place are asked their opinion and what they want,” said Ganguly. 
Transform 1012 N. Main Street previously held a similar event in Northside at Artes de la Rosa in mid-August.

After a presentation on the history of the former Ku Klux Klan auditorium and the story of Fred Rouse, Eastside residents Jackie Lewis and Helen Williams sat down to fill out a survey. Because of the historical presentation, they said they learned the history of the building after living in Fort Worth their whole lives.

“A lot of us over here don’t know the history of it,” Lewis said.

“I can appreciate that they’re trying to involve the whole city,” Williams added.

Rouse was a Black man who was lynched in 1921 after a white mob removed him from the hospital bed where he was recovering from a prior attack in the Stockyards. His is the only recorded lynching in Tarrant County.

Upon completion, the Transform 1012 project will be named the Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing. 

The in-person community gatherings started as a 10-minute chat over coffee, then morphed into a collective Zoom call introducing a cultural hub project to advocates, organizations and city officials. The feedback and questioning will be incorporated into the design of the Rouse Center.

As a board member of LGBTQ Saves, Puentes said this building is meant to bring people together. She wrote on her name tag: “To me, healing means LGBT community.” She said she is excited to see how that point of view will be incorporated into the future Rouse Center.

Project leaders envision the center housing a performance space, meeting spaces, an outdoor urban marketplace, a makerspace and historical exhibits, along with offering services for underserved and LGBTQ youth.

Civil rights leader Opal Lee serves as the founding coalition historian for Transform 1012 and attended the community conversation. She welcomed visitors with a warm smile, and everyone who came up to her was happy to sit down and have a conversation.

Lee believes in community input from surrounding Fort Worth neighborhoods because the Transform 1012 project is about bringing people together, she said. Having communities work alongside each other is one more step toward progress.

“I’m so hoping that at my age, that we will come to the conclusion that to make our nation, our city whole, we got to work together,” said Lee who turns 98 on Oct. 7. “There is no going around it.”

Camilo Diaz is a multimedia fellow at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at camilo.diaz@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.