Fort Worth approves $1.5M for memorial honoring only Black man lynched in city
The Fort Worth City Council approved funding Tuesday for the Mr. Fred Rouse Memorial — recognizing the only documented Black person to be lynched in Fort Worth.
The resolution was a unanimous vote to allocate $232,377 in Community Partnership funds to support the final funding needs for the project.
On Dec. 11, 1921, Fred Rouse was lynched at the corner of Northeast 12th Street and Samuels Avenue by a white mob. The Mr. Fred Rouse Memorial will be constructed at 1000 NE 12th Street, in the Riverside Gardens neighborhood.
Construction of the memorial is scheduled to start in a few weeks and be completed by early December.
The project will cost about $1.5 million and will be built by R.D. Howard Construction, a Black owned construction company.
According to designs submitted to Fort Worth’s Development Services in 2023, the one-third acre site will have a walking path and three 8-by-10-foot panels in the shape of the “death tree,” which is how the Fort Worth Star-Telegram described the hackberry tree Rouse was hanged from at the time of the lynching. The panels will display the words “justice,” “perseverance” and “reckoning.” A concrete memorial wall with the image of Fred Rouse II will be at the end of the path. No pictures of Fred Rouse could be found, which will be explained on the wall.
The memorial will include a space for people to pray and a timeline wall detailing the day Rouse was lynched. The back of the wall will have information about the creation of the memorial by the Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice. The area will have a garden path with a variety of hackberry and sycamore trees, black-eyed Susans, and autumn joy plants.
This story was originally published August 26, 2025 at 4:30 PM.
