The first African-American person to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction (1966-72), the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress from the South (1972-78), and the first woman to deliver the keynote address at a national party convention (Democratic Convention 1976 and again in 1992), Barbara Jordan was a groundbreaker, a powerful orator, and a force of nature. There is a statue of her at Austin’s airport, and this one on the UT campus, where she also taught, become—in 2009!—the first statue of a woman on the school’s grounds.

It’s Austin’s oldest cemetery, and it’s a big, rambling place that takes up two big Eastside blocks. It’s full of Austin and Texas history—you will see the names of its residents on some of the surrounding streets, as well as in accounts of the Battle of the Alamo—big trees, and lovely monuments. Covering more than 40 acres, the cemetery includes sections historically dedicated to Austin’s African-American, Latino, and Jewish populations. It became a Texas Historic Landmark in 1972 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

Downs-Mabson Field is a significant place in baseball history. It was once the home field of the Austin Black Senators (a team in the professional “Negro League” of the pre-integration area). Willie Wells was the most famous of the Senators, and you’ll probably see his portrait around town, especially if you go looking for the art of painter/musician Tim Kerr. Other notable players of the time who graced the field were Satchel Paige, Smokey Joe Williams, Willie Mays, and Buck O’Neil. It was also the home ballpark of Samuel Huston College before it combined with Tillotson College in 1952, and the Huston Tillotson University Rams continue to play there.

Named after educator Wesley H. Passon (1864-1933), who in 1907 wrote what is believed to be the first published history focused on African Americans in Austin, the society was formed in 1975 to preserve related materials and sites. Although tours of the collection inside the building are currently unavailable, the Gothic Revival house—a National Register of Historic Places site—and the outdoor sculptures are worth a look.

The Swede Hill home was built in 1876 by Joseph Limerick, an immigrant and stonemason, and purchased in 1905 by John W. Frazier, a professor at Samuel Huston College. After his death, his widow, Laura Allman Frazier, operated the house as lodging for African American students and travelers during the segregated Jim Crow era. The building has also been an important site in recent history. Author and educator Toni Tipton-Martin, whose book The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks won a James Beard Foundation award among others, taught local children the history and virtues of healthy home cooking there as well as launching the Pies for Peace initiative, which carries on today, from the house.

The former of home of the Kate and Michael Connelly family, who built it was built in 1904, the small pink house stands out on East 12th Street as one of the few remaining homes of its time, one once surrounded by many similar houses. Dr. Charles Yerwood bought the house in 1926 and opened a practice on East Sixth Street in the late 1920s. His daughters, Connie and Joyce, became doctors, and Connie Yerwood moved back to Austin in 1936 to become the first African American doctor to work for what is now the Department of State Health Services. The building is currently owned by the city of Austin’s Neighborhood Conservation and Development department and serves as the office for the Anderson Community Development Corporation.

Unlike many of the places on this list, Rosewood Courts is a fully occupied housing complex—private residences rather than a monument or space open to the public (although a stroll up Chicon Street north of Rosewood Avenue will give you a good idea of their look and layout). It’s also an important place in the history of Austin as well as of the United States in general. They were the first housing projects built for African Americans under the U.S. Housing Act of 1937 and, as with Santa Rita and Chalmers Courts a few blocks north, future U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson played a key role in their development when he was still a U.S. congressman.

This history of Austin’s Anderson High School is an emblematic story of dislocation and near erasure. It starts with Robertson Hill School, built in 1884 at San Marcos and 11th streets. One of the city’s first schools for black children, it was relocated to Olive and Curve streets in 1907, adding high school grades and renamed E.H. Anderson High School. In 1913, it moved to Pennsylvania Street, on the current site of Kealing Middle School. In 1938, it was renamed in memory of L.C. Anderson, E.H.’s brother and a longtime principal. In 1953, a new Anderson High School opened at on Thompson Street but closed in 1971 as part of a court-ordered desegregation plan. A completely decontextualized L.C. Anderson High School on Mesa Drive in Northwest Austin opened in 1974. There have since been efforts to represent the school’s history and accomplishments when it was on the Eastside, both at its current location and in East Austin.

The Carver Public Library was Austin’s first, and the museum next door is an important expansion of that foundational legacy. It’s also a place that encompasses history, contemporary art, and community—a gathering spot that hosts events and festivals throughout the year. Be sure to see the outdoor sculptures, particularly the moving Juneteenth monument and other statuary around the outside of the building.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Victory Grill opened in 1945 and gained national renown as a live blues, jazz, and soul club on the “chitlin circuit,” a term that refers to the music venues where African American musicians could play during segregation. Inside are numerous photos and histories from that time and beyond. The former nightclub is now open on a sporadic basis, usually rented out for live shows, and various efforts to serve food at the front cafe have been sadly short-lived. Kenny Dorham’s Backyard, an outdoor venue (with food trucks!) next to the restaurant and club, carries the torch for the historic space, hosting live jazz, soul, blues, and other events on a full-time basis.

In 1878, Samuel Huston College moved to Austin from Dallas, where the Ku Klux Klan had burned down its building. Then located on San Bernard Street where Wesley United Church now stands, it was the first institution of higher learning in Austin. Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute opened on Chicon Street in 1881. In 1952, the two merged to become Huston Tillotson College. The institution changed its name to Huston Tillotson University in 2005, but it still presides over East Austin from the original hilltop location of the Tillotson campus.