The project designed to transform a former KKK building into a center for community healing has gained national recognition and $3 million in funding.

In March, President Joe Biden signed a government funding law that includes $3 million for Transform 1012 N. Main Street, the organization that plans to rebuild and repurpose what used to be a meeting hall for Fort Worth’s KKK branch. Congressman Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat, submitted the request for funding. Veasey, city leaders and the Transform 1012 board gathered to celebrate the funding Tuesday.

“This funding is going to help bolster reparative justice,” Veasey said. It “will commemorate those who have suffered from racially and culturally directed violence and oppression.”

“We’ve lost so many stories because a building has gotten too old,” Veasey said. But the project will “be something that’s going to be much, much more powerful than had it been reduced to rubble.”

Plans call for the building to have a number of racial healing and artistic uses. It will feature a dance rehearsal space, an art gallery for racial, gender and economic justice, affordable housing and office spaces, an amphitheater and a public park, among other uses. It will be called The Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing, named after the only Black man who was lynched in Fort Worth. Rouse was killed in 1921.

Daniel Banks, board chair of Transform 1012, said the group is grateful for Veasey’s support. Members of the Transform 1012 board, including Opal Lee, who fought for recognition of Juneteenth as a national holiday, and Fred Rouse III, a descendant of Rouse, were present to receive the check.

“Folks locally understand the ongoing legacy and impact this building and its original [function has had] on the city, and how that has actually divided groups of people,” Banks said. The center will bring “all these groups back together again in one room ... to build a stronger Fort Worth together.”

Banks said the funding will go toward repairing the faulty roof and to stabilize the building so restoration can begin.

Councilman Chris Nettles said he believes Transform 1012 can bring Fort Worth together.

“With the climate of what’s happening all over America with violence and uncertainty, this is a great opportunity to bring multiple different groups together to understand the history of why we need each other,” Nettles said.

Veasey said the building will stand to share history in a different way.

“I love the telling of history, be it good, bad or ugly,” Veasey said. “We’re able to turn this story of oppression and racism and division and really make it something positive while still telling the story about what actually happened here during all those years.”