Black landmarks across East Austin appear in a newly updated statewide travel guide released this February by the Texas Historical Commission, highlighting locations significant to Black history and cultural preservation. The free digital guide, African Americans in Texas: A Lasting Legacy, identifies schools, universities, monuments, churches, and cultural sites established by Black communities during segregation.
Some of Austin’s best-known Black landmarks are included in the guide, including Huston-Tillotson University, formed in 1952 through the merger of two Reconstruction-era colleges founded in the 1870s to train Black teachers and ministers. The George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center, which preserves the Austin's Black cultural and artistic legacy with rotating exhibits in a former segregated library branch, also appears.
State sites are also noted. A photo composite in an alcove at the Texas Capitol honors Black lawmakers who served during the Reconstruction era, before Jim Crow laws were passed. A monument to the broad arc of African-American history was dedicated on the lawn of the Capitol. Reconstruction lawmakers also were honored with a monument at the Texas State Cemetery in 2010. Prominent black civic leaders, including Barbara Jordan and Eddie Bernice Johnson, are buried at the cemetery.
The Texas African American History Memorial stands on the south lawn of the Texas State Capitol in Austin.Courtesy of Texas Legislative Reference Library
The guide also highlights sites tied to daily life in segregated Austin, including the once-segregated Blackshear Elementary School and some of the city’s oldest Black churches, including Wesley United Methodist Church and Ebenezer Baptist Church. It also points to historic neighborhoods such as Clarksville, Wheatville, and Gregorytown, which were centers of Black homeownership, churches, schools, and locally owned businesses during segregation.
Public art also reflects that legacy. The Rhapsody mural at 1021 East 11th Street, created by artist and professor John Yancey, commemorates East Austin’s historic jazz and blues scene along East 11th and 12th streets, once part of the Chitlin’ Circuit. Nearby, the Victory Grill hosted artists including B.B. King, Billie Holiday, and James Brown, helping establish the area as the center of Austin’s Black music scene.
The guide also identifies locations once listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book, the mid-20th-century travel guide that helped Black travelers find safe lodging, restaurants, and entertainment during segregation. Austin appears in the Hill Country Trail section of the guide, one of 10 heritage regions in the Texas Heritage Trails Program, which connects historic sites across the state. Other locations featured in the guide include Freedmen’s Town in Dallas, the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Houston, and historically Black colleges such as Prairie View A&M University and Paul Quinn College.
The guide is available as a free download through the Texas Historical Commission.
