Sandy Michels and TCCJP
Sometimes journeys to racial justice can take centuries. The Rev. Sandi Michels of Fort Worth hopes to help hasten that process for at least one victim of a racial terror lynching in Tarrant County.
In 2018, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) opened the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. According to EJI, the projects are part of a national effort to create new spaces, markers, and memorials that address the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation which shapes many issues today. EJI also provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. The organization challenges the death penalty and excessive punishment and provides re-entry assistance to formerly incarcerated people.
In 2019, Michels visited the museum and the memorial. Per EJI, the memorial is the nation’s first dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people; people terrorized by lynching; African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow; and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence.
Moved to Action
Michels was profoundly moved by what she saw and learned. Upon her return to Fort Worth, she began looking for ways to be more involved on the local level, especially related to the story of a lynching that took place in Tarrant County. Her desire to be part of commemorating the event and educating people led her to meet with other interested people with the same goal.
This group of committed individuals eventually formed a non-profit group called the Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice (TCCPJ) with the goal of promoting conversations about race and culture in Tarrant County. Michels also addressed the annual convention of the Diocese of Fort Worth in November 2019 to educate the diocese about the work of TCCPJ.
The story behind the newly founded nonprofit TCCPJ actually began last century with the lynching of a Black man named Fred Rouse. Michels and others learned that Rouse moved to Fort Worth from Mississippi in the 1910s. He got a job butchering meat at Swift & Co., a meatpacking plant. The job enabled him to provide for his wife and three children, including a newborn son bearing his name. The Swift plant was in the Niles City Stockyards, which would later become part of Fort Worth.
Because Black laborers were not permitted to be members of unions, Rouse could not join the White employees when they went on strike in 1921. Rouse and other Black workers were called in to fill in for workers on strike. His decision to go to work that day ultimately proved fatal.
The Fatal Timeline
Per the TCCPL website, here is the timeline of Rouse’s lynching:
Dec. 6, 1921: When Rouse left work at 4:30 pm on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 1921, he was accosted, attacked, and stabbed repeatedly by strikers and strike agitators. In the brawl, two shots were fired that hit brothers Tom and Tracy Maclin. A White mob bludgeoned Rouse with a streetcar guardrail. He was left for dead on Exchange Avenue.
Niles City police officers asked the mob to relinquish the body of Mr. Rouse, which they placed in a police car. On the way to the mortuary, officers discovered that Rouse was still alive. They drove him south to the basement Negro Ward of the City and County Hospital (330 E. 4th St.).
Dec. 11, 1921: Five days later at 11 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 11, 1921, a mob of White men barged into the hospital, threatened the staff, and abducted Rouse from the Negro Ward. They drove north to what had become known as the “Death Tree” at the corner of NE 12th Street and Samuels Avenue. There, they hanged Mr. Fred Rouse, and riddled his body with bullets. Over 100 people drove to the site to watch the result of the murder of Rouse.
Rouse was buried on Dec. 12, 1921, in New Trinity Cemetery, Haltom City, Texas. Two days later, the property owner of the site of the racial terror lynching of Rouse cut down the “Death Tree.” Indictments were handed down against members of the mob. Despite the overwhelming evidence, no one was ever found guilty in the murder of Rouse.
Delivering awareness to Tarrant County
TCCPJ became the local organization responsible for shepherding the Alabama-based EJI Community Remembrance Project in Tarrant County. With the focus of Rouse’s story, TCCPJ is furthering its goals of recognizing the victims of racial terror and violence in our nation. The events centered around the story of Rouse are bearing fruit.
On Dec. 11, 2019, TCCPJ led the Community Remembrance Soil Collection Ceremony as a first step in carrying out the process laid out by EJI for a Community Remembrance project. Soil was gathered from the site of the lynching and placed into two jars. One jar was sent to Montgomery to be included in the Legacy Museum’s archive of jars of soil from racial terror lynching sites from across the country. The other jar remains in Fort Worth and is used to promote education.
On Dec. 11, 2021, TCCPJ led the installation of an historical marker on the site of the lynching as part of the centenary events to memorialize Rouse. This event was part of EJI’s Historical Marker Project. EJI’s goal is to install historical narrative markers in public spaces describing the devastating violence that took place in each location. TCCPJ also installed a marker at the location of the City and County Hospital’s Negro Ward at 330 E. 4th St. ,where Rouse was abducted prior to his lynching. The location is one block east of Bass Performance Hall.
A year later on Dec. 11, TCCPJ held a Soil Purification Ceremony at the site of Rouse’s lynching as part of the Community Remembrance Project, reclaiming the site of trauma in the name of those victimized by racial terrorism.
TCCPJ partnered with the Rainwater Charitable Foundation to purchase the land where the lynching occurred. TCCPJ is in the initial planning stages of “The Mr. Fred Rouse Memorial.” TCCPJ’s goal with the project is to reclaim this historical site of trauma and use the site as a foundation for community healing and memorializing.
Donate and take action
Fundraising with a goal of $350,000 is ongoing as work continues. The City of Fort Worth has pledged $100,000 if the group can raise the initial $200,000. People wishing to donate can send a donation by check to Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice OR TCCJP, 4455 Camp Bowie Blvd., #114-224, Fort Worth, TX 76107 or donate online at https://donorbox.org/donation-to-peace-and-justice. The goal is to install the permanent memorial on Dec. 11, 2023, the anniversary of the lynching.
In Fort Worth, TCCPJ also works closely with DNAWORKS, which develops and creates dance, theater, and film to promote dialogue-based social justice action and community building. The group’s “Fort Worth Lynching Tour: Honoring the Memory of Mr. Fred Rouse” takes groups on bike and car tours to the sites associated with the lynching.
EJI has documented more than 4,400 African American victims of racial terror lynching in at least twenty states across America between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to 1950. To see if your community was the site of a lynching, visit https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/explore.