As a historian who would support the reuse of almost any building, I cannot see spending millions on Fort Worth's former Klan HQ as a space of "healing." There are so many better uses of HP $ to support Black communities and history. Thread: a few reasons why 1/10 
When the Klan HQ opened on Main Street in 1924 it was a monument to racism and violence, in line with the county courthouse and casting a shadow on Frederick Douglass Park where Black families held Juneteenth celebrations in FW starting in 1895 and… 2/10
McGar Park where the Negro League Baseball held its games that attracted huge audiences. The park closed in 1925, right after the HQ opened, and the field soon after. A THC historical marker is all that remains, noting vaguely that “other factors” led to their demise. 3/10
While the Klan HQ still stands, Frederick Douglass Park and the Black community around it in the Trinity River Bottoms vanished. Pouring more money into a symbol of white power puts good money after bad. Why not demolish it and make a new park commemorating Black leadership? 4/10
For those worried we will "forget" the violence of the Klan without this building, stage a performative dismantling to commemorate its passing. Ask local activists, design students, and historians for their ideas about how to narrate this tragic erasure of Black history. 5/10
Fort Worth does a poor job with preservation in African American neighborhoods. Without spending in Como, Stop Six, Near Southeast Side, etc. supporting shared goals of history and economic development, spending millions on the Klan HQ continues racist patterns of funding. 6/10
Mt. Gilead Church still stands in downtown, one of the only buildings from Fort Worth's Black business district to survive the construction of the North-South highway (now I-35) - spared only through the intervention of a white bank owner. 7/10
Wayside Church and the Daughters of Jericho Headquarters are on Historic Fort Worth's Most Endangered List and deserve strategic reinvestment to support their connections to history and present-day missions. 8/10 preservationtexas.org/endangered/way…
This history is complicated. But spending on Fort Worth's Klan HQ, standing alone in the Panther Island boondoggle, separate from any authentic neighborhood, will not rewrite its racist history, only cement it as a permanent landmark of the city's discriminatory development. 9/10
Thanks to @james4texas and @lukeranker for covering this story. There are a lot of other ways of thinking about preservation in FW and we need to innovate. #readlocal
Their coverage that prompted this thread is here and here
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Their coverage that prompted this thread is here and here
10/10
p.s. There is a great 1920s era hall in the Near Southside that is very similar in design – the Fort Worth Recreation Building is on the National Register and hosted I.M. Terrell’s basketball games during the 1920s. Why not invest there? fwweekly.com/2009/06/10/the…
