In the 1960s, Augustine Williams started her first beauty salon on East 11th Street. She was deeply involved in East Austin’s Black community, singing in a choir in her local church as she ran Style Rite Beauty for 40 years. When developers showed interest in restoring the surrounding buildings, the Austin Revitalization Authority worked to preserve the business.

 

“We carved out a small space for the lady Augustine Williams to continue on with her salon,” said Gregory Smith, CEO of the Austin Revitalization Authority. “We put it in about 600 square feet. She operated (that) salon until 2014. She was 92 years old.” 

 

The group, which started as a City Council initiative in the 1990s to revive the slowing East Austin commerce sector, kept the salon operational even as the space changed owners and other historical residences and business turned to coffee shops and high-rises over the years. 

 

As city attention turned to the need to preserve East Austin’s racial history, the Historic Landmark Commission in July 2021 appointed a board to update the 1981 preservation guidelines. The Equity-Based Preservation Plan, expected to be released early next year, promises a more equitable and community-based approach to historical designation and redevelopment. 

 

Meghan King, policy and outreach planner for Preserve Austin, an advocacy and grant organization focused on educating people about cultural heritage and historical designations, said the preservation movement is changing with Austin paying more attention to the cultural heritage of its Black and Brown populations.

 

“As you can imagine, historically, it used to be a lot more focused on high style, owned by rich, affluent white people, generally white men,” King said. “The goal of the Equity-Based Preservation Plan is to create new tools, programs (and) resources, that will allow for a more expansive idea of preservation that is inclusive of everyone's history.”

 

Currently, to be eligible for a historical landmark buildings must be at least 50 years old, have historic integrity and meet at least two criteria for significance: architecture; associations with important people, groups, or events; archaeology; community value; or landscape feature. 

 

A 2016 city-funded survey found about 2,700 properties in East Austin alone are eligible for at least  local landmark status yet only 26 properties had a previous designation. 

 

As of 2023, only two of the eight historical districts in Austin are in what the city designates as  East Austin, between Manor Road and Cesar Chavez Street, east of Interstate 35.  Neither of the two areas includes 11th Street. 
 

The 1928 Austin city plan legally segregated the city by pushing African American communities east of Interstate 35, formerly known as East Avenue, according to Sharon Hill, author of “The Empty Stairs: The Lost History of East Austin.” 

 

“The area of 11th Street contained some of the oldest African American-owned businesses in the city and during the 1940s developed into a major thoroughfare with many businesses to support the community,” Hill wrote in the article. 

 

The Austin metropolitan area grew by almost 22% between 2010 and 2022. According to the city, the population of Black residents decreased from 12% in 1990 to just 8% in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

 

In a 2022 survey by Measure, a nonprofit organization focusing on racial disparity research, 88% of Black participants cited high costs of living as a reason they left the city.

 

Despite the Black community’s deep-rooted history in East Austin, residents can no longer afford to live there, said Chas Moore, founder and co-executive director of the Austin Justice Coalition.

 

“When we speak on the East side, you have to speak about it in a historical context.” Moore said. “The Black and brown populations of the East side are fighting to remain but they are no longer there.” 

 

Moore said the displacement of the historic Black and brown communities are tied to city policy, noting issues of increased police presence, zoning and food deserts as reasons Black homeowners sell their properties. 

 

Property tax increases due to redevelopment of nearby neighborhoods also force Black people out of East Austin. Recently, a North Texas developer, Eureka!, bought multiple properties along East Austin’s historic 12th Street, Smith said. It is unclear what the developer plans to use the land for. 

 

“More power to you if you have the resources to buy the land that you're buying and being able to sit on it without trying to get a return,” Smith said.

 

King said the land itself is usually more valuable for developers, so they tend to demolish historic buildings on the property and replace them, usually with high rises.

 

“We advocate for policies that make math easier so that people don't want to just demolish homes,” she said. “Then we can preserve existing homes so that people can stay in their places.” 

 

Smith said the land bought by Eureka! is part of an urban renewal zone, which were established alongside the authority in the 1990s. Therefore, the city has jurisdiction to tell developers how to use the land. If the developers do not comply, the city can seize the property.

 

“This plan is in place but for whatever reason, no one is enforcing that plan,” Smith said. “They have been buying properties for the past ten years.”

 

Smith’s and Moore’s organizations have switched focus to other areas of the city moving forward. Smith describes this as a Robin Hood model, where the ARA earns revenue from their projects in East Austin to give back to pockets of Black communities in other places in the city at risk of redevelopment. 

 

Moore is hopeful because of increased activism in younger generations but said the city does not put enough care into the wellbeing of its Black residents.

 

“Hope is all we have, hope is the only reason I can get up and fight every day,” Moore said. “If I go off on what I’ve seen and lived through in Austin, there will not be Black people (here) in five to 10 years.”