Austin needs all of us.
Who is Six Square?
Six Square is Austin’s Black Cultural District. Our mission is to preserve, celebrate, uplift, and advocate for Black culture opportunities by remove obstacles and leveraging arts and culture, education, economic development, and advocacy to sustain and co-create a more equitable legacy of historic Central East Austin.
Historically significant.
Culturally relevant.
Telling our story.
Tour Overview
From the Victory Grill – where luminaries such as Bobby Blue Bland, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Ike and Tina Turner, and B.B. King all played Blues and R&B – to Downs Field, where baseball greats Jackie Robinson, Satchell Paige, and other stars of the Negro League played ball… To the stately homes of San Bernard Street and the modern architecture of John Chase… History still lives, and the future is evolving, in Austin’s Black Cultural District.
Six Square offers tours that encompass landmarks of Black architecture and design, historic cemeteries in the district, sites of slavery and emancipation, churches, juke joints on the Chitlin’ Circuit, and other distinctive places in Central East Austin.
Where You Will Meet
George Washington Carver Museum at 1165 Angelina Street.
Tours Run 3 to 4 Hours
The cost is $35 per person
What to Bring?
- An open mind
- Comfortable walking shoes
Options of Tour
- Walking Tour
- Driving Tour- group is responsible for securing, van or bus and the tour guide will ride on in the vehicle, the start location is the same (Carver Museum)
The Sites You Will See
- The George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center (1980; 2004)—A brief tour of the GWCM and grounds, including the Juneteenth Garden.
- San Bernard Street—Site of Wesley United Methodist Church, Olivet Baptist Church, locations of two (2) Black Sorority houses, the home where Thurgood Marshall lived while he was in Austin representing Heman Marion Sweatt, plaintiff in the Sweatt vs. Painter case in which Heman Sweatt sued the University of Texas , which denied him enrollment in the University of Texas School of Law.
- Texas State Cemetery
- African American Cultural & Heritage Center—Get out of bus and go to courtyard and explain commemorative photo tiles of African American Austinites who have shaped Austin’s history. Also, site of Dedrick-Hamilton House (Circa 1880).
- Urdy Plaza – Contains “Rhythm Rhapsody” Mosaic. We can walk there from the African American Cultural & Heritage Center. Point out the St. Joseph Grand Lodge Building (1949)
- Ebenezer Baptist Church (Organized 1875; present site 1955)
- Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church (Organized 1872; present church building formerly a German Lutheran Church acquired by Metropolitan AME in 1913; moved to present site in East Austin in 1922, six years before Austin City Council approved its first Master Plan in 1928 which called for the establishment of a “Negro District” in East Austin.
- Rosewood Park (1930) – First municipal park for Black Austinites established by the city as per the 1928 Master Plan. Contains the Henry Green Madison Cabin, Bertram-Huppertz House (1875); Doris Miller Auditorium (1944).
- Huston-Tillotson University – 900 Chicon Street. Established 1875, Huston-Tillotson University is the oldest institution for higher education in Austin, Texas.
- Downs-Mabson Field (1954) – get out of bus and explore
- Downs Field, home of the Huston-Tillotson Rams Baseball Team. Site dates to 1918 on land purchased by City of Austin for Negro Athletics. I will explain the evolution of that site from 1918 to the present. Show mosaics of some baseball players who played on that field, members of the Negro Leagues.