“We’re trying to turn a site that was meant for evil and tragic terror and racial violence that was here, and we’re trying to turn that site into a site for peace,” said Fred Rouse III, standing on a plot in Fort Worth’s Northside neighborhood.
The site, at the corner of NE 12th Street and Samuels Avenue, was where Rouse’s grandfather was murdered more than 100 years ago, lynched and hung from the “death tree” that has since been torn down.
“My grandfather, when he was hung from that tree, on this land, he hung there all day. There were hundreds of people out here, people watching— nobody did anything. And so, the next morning is when family came and cut him down from the tree,” he said…