Fort Worth’s Historic Southside is the site of the National Juneteenth Museum, a $70 million project commemorating the day in 1865 when enslaved African Americans in Texas were informed they were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Four Black-led firms hold leadership positions on the build team, spanning design architecture, executive architecture, and construction management, reflecting the museum’s stated commitment to ensuring minority businesses hold leadership roles across construction and other opportunities.
The Build Team
H.J. Russell & Company, Post L Group, and Source Building Group were selected as Construction Managers at Risk for the museum in Fort Worth’s Historic Southside. The three firms are responsible for pre-construction planning, cost management, scheduling, and execution. KAI Enterprises is serving as executive architect.
H.J. Russell & Company is one of the nation’s largest construction and program management firms, headquartered in Atlanta with offices in Boston, Dallas, Florida, and Los Angeles. The firm’s work spans multifamily, transportation, commercial, government, education, and mission-critical sectors. Its portfolio includes Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
Post L Group is a Fort Worth-based general contractor led by Jeffery Postell, who spent nearly three decades in construction before starting the firm. Post L serves clients across K-12, aviation, healthcare, higher education, municipal, and commercial sectors in North Texas. Postell also founded Building Pathways, a nonprofit focused on apprenticeship and career development in the skilled trades.
Source Building Group is a Fort Worth-area full-service general builder delivering preconstruction and construction services as both a General Contractor and Construction Manager at Risk. The firm serves clients across healthcare, education, aviation, government, and commercial development in North Texas.
KAI Enterprises is serving as executive architect on the project. One of the nation’s largest design and construction firms, KAI has more than 160 architects, engineers, interior designers, builders, and support staff across offices in St. Louis, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Atlanta. Darren L. James, President of KAI Enterprises, leads the firm’s work on the project.
The lead designer is Douglass Alligood, a partner at BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group and co-founder of Alligood Song Architecture. With more than 40 years of experience, his approach prioritizes the needs of the people who will use a building and the community context it sits within, an approach directly reflected in the museum’s design.
The Project
Dr. Opal Lee, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth, is the Founding Board Member of the museum. The project sits on the same Fort Worth Southside site where she operated a small Juneteenth museum for nearly two decades. She has spoken directly about what the project represents:
“Seeing the national museum moving forward is a dream fulfilled. I’ve had a little Juneteenth Museum in that very spot for almost 20 years, and to see it become a central place for discussion, collaboration, and learning seems to be the providential next step — from my walking campaign to Washington, D.C., the petition, and having Juneteenth declared a federal holiday. It’s mind-boggling, but I’m glad to see it all come to pass.”
The 50,000-square-foot cultural center will include 10,000 square feet of immersive exhibit galleries, a 250-seat theater for lectures, speaker series, and performances, a Black Box flexible event space, a business incubator for emerging companies and co-working space, and a food hall featuring local chefs, vendors, and emerging entrepreneurs. The building is surrounded by 360 degrees of green space organized across four outdoor areas: Journey Garden, Promised Land Plaza, Emancipation Plaza, and Knowledge Garden.
The design draws from the gabled rooftop architecture common to residential buildings in Fort Worth’s Historic Southside, using heavy timber and an undulating roof structure that forms a nova star-shaped courtyard at the building’s center. The museum describes the nova star, meaning “new star,” as representing a new chapter looking ahead toward a more just future. A five-point star engraved in gold terrazzo at the courtyard’s center references both Texas and the American flag.
The City of Fort Worth has committed $15 million to the project and the Texas Legislature has pledged an additional $10 million. The total project cost is estimated at $70 million. As of the February 2026 CMAR announcement, construction is anticipated to begin in fall 2026.
The Structural Argument
Construction management at risk makes the CMAR team responsible for budget, schedule, procurement, compliance, and contractor network management simultaneously. The team holds those variables across the life of the project, not just at individual phases.
The museum’s leadership and design team have publicly stated their commitment to minority business inclusion in leadership roles, and the build team reflects it.
H.J. Russell has been executing at institutional scale for more than seven decades. KAI has built a multi-subsidiary firm with over 160 professionals operating across design, engineering, construction, and construction services. Post L Group operates a workforce development nonprofit alongside its project work. Source Building Group has spent more than a decade building its position in the DFW market through civic, healthcare, and education projects.
These are firms that have built the capacity to compete for and execute work at this level. The Juneteenth Museum gives them a project that documents it.
Shoppe Black has documented Black-led architecture firms operating nationally in Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and Black-led construction firms in Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
