The targeted location for construction of the planned National Juneteenth Museum is shifting to a new spot in Fort Worth’s Historic Southside neighborhood.
The museum’s original location was to be on vacant land in the 900 block of East Rosedale Street, but the organization was not able to acquire the land, which is near the corner of Veal and Verbena. The museum now wants to use the site of the Southside Community Center at 959 E. Rosedale St.
Jarred Howard, CEO of the National Juneteenth Museum, said he and museum staff have had their eye on the community center since they first had the vision for the museum.
“We’ve always wanted to acquire as much real estate as we possibly could,” Howard told the Star Telegram. “The pivot in our original footprint is what caused us to push through this quicker than we might have originally.”
The representative of the city of Fort Worth could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.
The plan received unanimous support in a meeting of the Historic Southside Neighborhood Association on Monday night.
Howard says the plans for the museum remain the same. It is to include a food hall, a performance theater, a black box space to hold events, and a business incubator.
He says the next steps are to continue negotiations with the city to acquire the site, while museum staff shifts its planning based on the new location. The museum would be responsible for the demolition of the community center and the cost of the new museum building.
The city council voted Aug. 27 to shift $370,500 in federal Community Development Block Grant funds designated to improve the Southside Community Center to the Healthy Homes for Heroes Veterans Home Repair program.
A report on the condition of the community center by an architectural firm showed a number of challenges that would make it difficult to bring the facility up to the city’s standards. The city determined that renovations to the facility would not be the best use of city or grant funds, according to a city spokesperson.
One mile southeast of downtown Fort Worth, the Historic Southside is one of the oldest African American neighborhoods in the city.
The neighborhood is bordered by Interstate 35W to the west, Vickery Boulevard to the north, Riverside Drive to the east, and Rosedale Street to the south.
Opal Lee, considered the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” symbolically walked 1,400 miles from Fort Worth to Washingotn, D.C., in 2016 to bring attention to the importance of the Juneteenth holiday. In 2021, Lee, who lives in Fort Worth, was in attendance when President Joe Biden signed legislation to make Juneteenth a national holiday.
In July, the museum held a History Harvest where people could share a variety of artifacts ranging from letters, family photos, birth certificates, marriage licenses, clothing, audio and video recordings of family, artwork, maps, awards, cookbooks and more to be in the museum.
