The long-proposed African American Museum and Cultural Center in Fort Worth could soon receive the final dollars needed to open its doors.
Council members will vote at their Jan. 13 meeting whether to allocate $40,000 toward finishing building renovations at 3100 and 3104 E. Rosedale St. in the Polytechnic Heights neighborhood. City officials were briefed on the proposal during a Jan. 6 work session.
Officials with the African American museum plan to open the center in a 5,000-square-foot property acquired by its nonprofit in July. The center, adjacent to Texas Wesleyan University, will focus on preserving the history, culture and stories of the city’s Black residents through curated exhibitions and community programming.
Museum chairman John Barnett said it’s wonderful to be close to receiving those necessary funds, as the center existed as a “vision in our collective heads” since early 2020.
The city’s funds, if approved, will be used for a new air conditioning system, he said.
He declined to share the museum’s total fundraising goal but said the nonprofit has enough money to operate. He also declined to share when the renovated center would open but said it’ll be “sometime within this calendar year.”
“Our goal is to present a quality institution that we are proud of and that will accommodate our vision and mission,” Barnett said. “When we’re ready, we’ll shout it from the rooftop.”
The African American museum is one of several projects — established or in the works — related to Black history in Fort Worth.
The Lenora Rolla Heritage Center Museum in the Historic Southside has collected archives and spotlighted prominent Black leaders in Tarrant County for nearly 50 years.
The National Juneteenth Museum is expected to be built on the property where the Southside Community Center currently stands once museum leaders secure the final funds needed to break ground. A separate nonprofit is leading efforts to transform a former Ku Klux Klan hall in the Northside into a community arts center that will honor a Black man lynched by a white mob in 1921.
Barnett stressed that the African American museum is not in competition with those institutions as they have the opportunity to collaborate to “move the community forward.”
Preserving Black history
Suggestions for a new Black-focused museum were brought up in December 2019 by members of the Butler Place advisory committee who were looking at ways to preserve local history. The group oversaw the initial redevelopment of the historic public housing community.
Members of the city’s Neighborhood Services Department, Fort Worth Housing Solutions and the African American Steering Committee convened the following month to establish the criteria for such an institution. Over the next two years, several workshops and surveys were conducted and found that the community was interested in a combined museum and cultural center.
In June 2022, City Council allocated $40,000 to the North Texas Community Foundation to partially fund a $230,000 study on the economic feasibility and potential locations for an African American museum. The money wasn’t spent. Now those city dollars could go toward the building improvements.
Museum leaders initially explored three locations for the project: the now-closed Fort Worth Community Arts Center at 1300 Gendy St., the vacant space between the arts center and the Museum of Science and History, and the Southside Community Center.
None of those sites worked out, Barnett said, so the board explored properties on East Rosedale Street that would best serve to “birth this institution.” The building previously served as “Burge Hardware” from 1913 to 2013, according to Fort Worth Star-Telegram archives.
Mayor Mattie Parker and council member Deborah Peoples thanked Barnett during the Jan. 6 work session for his “tenacity” and “resilience” in leading the museum toward completion.
Barnett hopes the cultural center “enlightens and inspires” all Fort Worth residents to get a deeper understanding of local history.
David Moreno is the arts and culture reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports.
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