One of the last Klan halls in America faces the wrecking ball. Should it be saved?
FORT WORTH -- Once the home of secret meetings and burning crosses, the 1924 Ku Klux Klan hall north of downtown may be six months from the wrecking ball.
A city commission is scheduled to decide July 8 whether the owners can demolish it in 180 days, but supporters of a local arts and service organization want time to propose a cultural center devoted to artistic expression and racial healing.
The brick auditorium at 1012 N. Main St., built in 1924 and rebuilt after an early firebombing, is on a prime location that will overlook downtown from the water’s edge when the future Trinity River flood control and development project is completed.
Nobody wants the Klan hall to somehow fall into the wrong hands. But Fort Worth needs the tax money. We’re better off if that land is kept on the tax rolls and redeveloped.
Read more: https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/bud-kennedy/article232025272.html
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I think that as a people and a culture, we ought to remember some of our less-pleasant parts of our history, instead of obliterating and then pretending that it never happened.
Besides, if that hall is near where I think it is, the neighborhood is plurality-Latino.
