DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say — and this one deserves every word. Picture Austin, Texas, 1909. The city's African American population is growing, and the Austin Public School system decides it needs a high school to serve that community.
So they build one, and they call it E.H. Anderson High School. Nearly three decades pass, and in 1938, the school gets a new name — L.C.
Anderson High School. That same year, the Austin City Plan draws a line. Future African American schools, the plan says, will be built east of East Avenue, confined to the segregated neighborhood on that side of the city.
A name change and a boundary drawn in the same year. That is where this story begins to gather its weight. The years roll on.
Population grows after the war, as it does everywhere, and by 1953, AISD decides the old building won't do. They put up a larger, more modern facility for Anderson. And here is where the story gets complicated, as stories about places people love always do — because whatever the politics and the policies said about that school, what happened inside its walls was something else entirely.
L.C. Anderson High School became a social center. Not just for students, but for the entire community.
Athletics. Plays. Concerts.
Graduations. The kind of institution that holds a neighborhood together like a backbone. And despite the very real disadvantages baked into a segregated system, the students excelled — in academics, in athletics, in music.
You don't build that kind of record without something genuine at the core. Now, 1955. The U.S.
Supreme Court issues its second Brown v. Board of Education decision, ordering schools nationwide to desegregate with all deliberate speed. Austin's response was what they called a freedom of choice program — students could choose where they attended.
It sounds reasonable on paper. But time moved slowly, and in 1968, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare declared AISD noncompliant with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Four years after that act was passed, noncompliant. In 1969, AISD attempted to integrate Anderson itself. Seventeen white students enrolled.
Seventeen. In 1971, a U.S. district court redrew the attendance boundaries, and that number climbed — to forty. Forty white students, because many white parents would not allow their children to attend Anderson High School.
And then came the decision that still echoes. In 1971, AISD, with the court's approval, closed L.C. Anderson High School at this location.
Austin's only Black public high school. African American students were ordered bused to predominantly white high schools across the district. The marker is careful and honest about what that meant.
The closure diminished the cohesiveness that had made Anderson such a focal point for the surrounding community. A community that had built something extraordinary inside a system designed to limit them — and then watched the institution that carried all of that be shut down in the name of a desegregation process that, for years, had moved with anything but speed. That is the full weight of what this marker is asking you to hold.
A school that was a heart. And what it cost to lose it.
What the marker says
To accommodate an increasing African American population, the Austin Public School system (later the AISD) built E.H. Anderson High School in 1909, renaming it L.C. Anderson High School in 1938. The same year, the Austin City Plan restricted construction of future African American schools to the segregated neighborhood east of East Avenue. Post-war population growth and the need to improve its "separate but equal" facilities led AISD in 1953 to build a larger, more modern building for Anderson High School. L.C. Anderson High School became a social center for the entire community, hosting athletics, plays, concerts, and graduations, and despite its disadvantages, the students excelled in academics, athletics, and music. In 1955, the U.S. Supreme Court's second Brown v. Board of Education decision ordered schools nationwide to desegregate "with all deliberate speed." Austin implemented a "freedom of choice" program, allowing students to choose where they attended school, but in 1968, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare declared AISD noncompliant with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1969, AISD attempted to integrate Anderson, but only 17 white students enrolled. In 1971, when a U.S. district court redrew attendance boundaries, only 40 white students attended, as many white parents would not allow their children to attend Anderson. In 1971, AISD, with the court's approval, closed Anderson High School and ordered the busing of African American students to predominantly white high schools within the district. The closure of L.C. Anderson High School at this location, Austin's only Black public high school, diminished the cohesiveness which made the historic L.C. Anderson High School such a focal point for the surrounding community. (2018)