With a new lynching memorial in Fort Worth, DesignJones continues to create landscapes of racial reconciliation.
By James Russell
Image courtesy DesignJones LLC.
Fred Rouse was hanged from a hackberry tree north of downtown Fort Worth, Texas, on December 11, 1921. Not until local organizers and activists dug into his history did Rouse?s own grandson, Fred Rouse III, learn about the lynching. A century later, the murder was finally acknowledged with a marker telling of the Black man?s death at the hands of a white mob. Now, a vacant lot near the lynching site is set to become a memorial park designed by DesignJones LLC for the Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice (TCCPJ), cofounded by Rouse to memorialize his grandfather?s life. Rouse?s violent death and its legacy are central to the design, which takes the visitor on an emotional and physical journey, winding through a series of outdoor spaces?among them the Harrowing Garden and the Release Garden?and three pairs of Cor-Ten steel panels. Those panels, which evolved over time, are cut with silhouettes of the lynching tree, or ?death tree,? as the local newspaper called it at the time, which still stands just south of the memorial site.
As a counterpoint to the weighty subject, the Release Garden offers a space away from the main memorial wall to reflect on Rouse?s life and his violent murder. Also proposed for the site is a pillar designated for Tarrant County from the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Bir...