A Fort Worth museum to preserve Black history moves closer to reality
The Fort Worth African American Museum and Cultural Center is closer to becoming a reality, as a building has been purchased for the organization to preserve the history, culture and stories of African Americans in the Fort Worth area.
During a city council work session Tuesday at City Hall, Kacey Thomas, the city’s director of Neighborhood Services, said the museum’s nonprofit organization has purchased two units of an existing building totaling 5,000 square feet, located at 3100 and 3104 East Rosedale St. in the Polytechnic Heights neighborhood in east Fort Worth.
The city donated $40,000 in 2022 to fund a study of potential museum sites. The museum is now asking the city to allocate the funds directly to the museum to complete building improvements. The council is expected to make a decision at its Jan. 13 meeting.
“I do want to thank Dr. John Barnett for being here and for his persistence and amazing resilience in getting this done,” Councilwoman Deborah Peoples said during the work session. Barnett is co-chair of the organization’s steering committee.
The museum’s steering committee selected the building after eliminating other sites under consideration, including those in the Cultural District and the Historic Southside neighborhood, said Barnett, a local pediatric dentist and art collector. The committee found the building, which is across from Texas Wesleyan University and along a main thoroughfare on East Rosedale, to be an ideal location, he said.
Barnett said there is no set timeline for the museum’s completion, but the group is working as expeditiously as possible to deliver a high-quality, engaging museum. Barnett said the mission is to preserve African American history and culture locally and beyond.
“Sometimes institutions are defined by their times and their circumstances, and so we are not so rigidly engaged that we will not look at what is befitting of the time, what will serve our community and what will allow us to bring unity and understanding through the different segments of our community for the betterment of Fort Worth as a whole,” Barnett told the Star-Telegram.
In 2020, the city’s Neighborhood Services Department, Fort Worth Housing Solutions and a subcommittee of the African American Steering Committee began developing criteria for an institution to preserve the history and culture of African Americans, with an emphasis on the stories of people in Fort Worth.
It arose from redevelopment discussions about Butler Place, a public housing project that closed in December 2020. In a series of community workshops, stakeholders proposed establishing an African American museum to mitigate the redevelopment’s adverse impacts on historic resources in the Black community.
In May 2022, three possible sites for the museum were presented at public forum at the Como Community Center: repurposing the Community Arts Center in the Cultural District, building a new space between the Community Arts Center and the Museum of Science and History, and building a new space at the site of the Southside Community Center in the Historic Southside neighborhood. This sparked debate in the community about whether to build the museum among the city’s other museums or within the Historic Southside’s Black community.
The timeline for the museum’s groundbreaking and construction is uncertain.
The museum is among at least three scheduled for construction in Fort Worth over the next few years. This includes the National Juneteenth Museum, which will be built at the Southside Community Center, 959 E Rosedale St., in the Historic Southside Community. Additionally, the Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing will be built at 1012 N. Main St at the former Ku Klux Klan Klavern No. 101’s Auditorium. It is scheduled for construction in 2027.
