On Saturday, a memorial to honor the memory of Fred Rouse will be unveiled in Fort Worth, 100 years after a mob lynched him.
In 1921, Fort Worth stockyard workers went on strike, and the meatpacking companies hired non-union workers to replace them. Rouse was one of these replacement workers.
Newspapers from the period state that a clash broke out between the striking workers and their hired replacements outside of the meatpacking house. During the conflict, Rouse allegedly shot and wounded two strikers. Rouse was then beaten severely and forced to spend several days recovering in the segregated basement of the local hospital.
On December 11, the angry mob arrived at the hospital and kidnapped Rouse. The crowd shot and hung Rouse off a tree on Samuels Avenue, where the memorial site will be erected.
According to an Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) report, Rouse was one of the thousands of black Americans lynched in the United States between the Civil War and World War II.
EJI’s investigative report found 4084 racial terror lynchings in twelve Southern states between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and 1950.
“Lynchings were violent and public acts of torture that traumatized black people throughout the country and were largely tolerated by state and federal officials,” the report states.
The Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice (TCCPJ) is the nonprofit leading the memorialization of Rouse. Before the memorial’s unveiling, the TCCPJ will break ground on a historical marker in front of the hospital where Rouse was abducted. That hospital is now part of the Bass Performance Hall located in downtown Fort Worth.
The memorial’s location is currently an empty lot, but the TCCPJ plans to develop around the site. Adam W. McKinney, the president of the TCCPJ, told KERA News that they’ve already hired a design firm and will take input from neighborhood residents on how to develop the site.
“In perpetuity, Mr. Fred Rouse will not be forgotten,” says McKinney, who is also the co-founder and co-director of the arts organization DNAWORKS.
DNAWORKS introduced the Fort Worth Lynching Tour earlier this year, which honors Rouse. The tour starts at the site where Rouse was lynched and ends near the Trinity River. The tour includes multiple stops associated with Rouse’s murder, like the hospital he was abducted from and an abandoned warehouse on North Main Street built in 1920 by the Ku Klux Klan.
McKinney states that DNAWORKS hopes to turn that old warehouse into a civil rights museum and performance center named after Rouse.
The unveiling of the memorial caps a week full of events that were to honor Rouse. A prayer vigil was held at the Fort Worth Stockyards on Monday, December 6, and on Friday, December 10, a “memorial march for justice” was held in downtown Fort Worth.