Saving sacred ground: The battle to protect Austin’s first Black cemetery

Sue Spears’ life’s work started as a nuisance. In the 1990s, across the street from her children’s East Austin elementary school, sat a large lot with a hazardous path, overgrown with shrubs and tangled tree limbs.

“The children were walking through the trail to get to the neighborhoods,” Spears said. “The PTA had some safety concerns. And so that’s how it all got started.”

Spears canvassed the property and discovered weather-beaten stones she later learned were grave markers. After researching who owned the land, she learned it was a cemetery established in the 19th century, not just a cemetery, but Austin’s first all-Black cemetery.

“It was eye-opening,” Spears said. “We came across some slave narratives that just really tugged at my heart… I just couldn’t believe that I’d lived here all my life and never knew this was a cemetery.”

Now the president of the Bethany Cemetery Association, Spears has already helped the historic cemetery gain formal recognition from the state. Still, it lacks a key city designation to protect it from erasure, as other Black landmarks in Austin have suffered amid rapid redevelopment. After a failed attempt in the 1970s, momentum is building to rezone the cemetery as a historic landmark, reviving a push that stalled for decades as the site fell into disrepair.

The renewed effort comes as East Austin continues to transform, with luxury condos replacing modest homes and longtime Black residents pushed out. In a year when the word “equity” has become politically charged, the push to protect Bethany Cemetery has become a test of whether Austin will follow through on promises to correct preservation policies that have historically favored wealthy neighborhoods over others, reshaped by gentrification, development and displacement.

Austin’s City Council adopted the 1928 master plan that segregated Black residents to a “Negro District,” east of what is now Interstate 35. The plan included ending utility services for Black residents living outside of East Austin as a way of pressuring them to move there.

Even after segregation ended, the legacy of the 1928 policy persisted, and East Austin continued to be home to a large share of the city’s Black residents until the turn of the century. From 2000 to 2010, the number of Black people living in a large swath of East Austin — bounded by Interstate 35, Northwestern Avenue, E. 7th Street and E. 11th Street — declined by 60%, according to a University of Texas at Austin report. Recent estimates show that African Americans make up less than 7% of Austin’s population.

“[The designation] will allow me and the other people that live in Austin to know how significant the African American community once was here in Austin, and that it’s not forgotten,” Spears said. “Recognition by the city shows that places like Bethany matter, and that they hold a significant history of the city.”

Scratching the surface of Bethany’s history

As settlers established roots in Austin, around the time Texas joined the Union, Oakwood Cemetery was founded. In the early years, a small area of the cemetery was sectioned off for the burial of some of Austin’s first Black residents. That section soon reached capacity, leading early Austinites to find another location to bury their loved ones.

“[Bethany Cemetery] was the first place where African Americans in Austin could be buried with dignity,” said Meghan King Namour, of Preservation Austin, a nonprofit organization that advocates for Austin’s historic spaces.

Bethany Cemetery is the resting place of dozens of significant Black Austinites, many of whom were enslaved during their lifetimes. Those buried there include Buffalo Soldiers who fought for liberation in the Civil War, a woman born into slavery who later became a prominent midwife and people once enslaved by former Texas Gov. Elisha Pease.

“Betheny Cemetery is one of the most important sites of Black heritage in all of Austin,” King Namour said. “It’s kind of shocking to us at Preservation Austin that it’s not already designated.”

The designation process

King Namour said the historic landmark designation process involves extensive work. “It requires some money, some research, some expertise to put together a package,” she said.

Preservation Austin has been a key player in the effort to secure the designation. That work, alongside Spears’ advocacy, culminated in a recent vote by the Historic Landmark Commission, which advanced a recommendation for Bethany Cemetery be rezoned as a historic landmark.

In February, that recommendation will go in front of the Planning Commission before the Austin City Council has a final say.

The zoning change will ensure “the historic integrity of the cemetery is preserved,” King Namour said. “If anyone wants to make a change, they’d have to go before the Historic Landmark Commission and make a case as to why this change is appropriate or necessary.”

“It’s some guardrails to protect that history,” she added.

This process is unfolding as developers eye nearby land for future projects, Spears said, noting “a really big apartment complex” will soon surround the cemetery.

‘It’s such an empowering space’

Like Spears, Javier Wallace grew up near Bethany Cemetery without realizing the rich history buried beneath the surface.

Years later, while founding his company, Black Austin Tours, he connected with Spears and discovered that his ties to the cemetery ran far deeper than he knew.

“My third great-grandparents are buried in Bethany Cemetery: the Crenshaw family and the Callahan family, formerly enslaved people,” Wallace said. “I never knew. My mom never knew.”

Wallace said while other Austin cemeteries have received sustained investment, Bethany Cemetery was largely forgotten for decades. Spears’ work, he said, helped him better understand his own roots and learn more about others who helped shape Austin.

“It’s such an empowering space, because I know that those individuals, who were more than likely born into enslavement, survived that institution,” Wallace said. “Not only did they survive, but they went on to have children, and their children went on to do different things that have contributed to the creation of the state of Texas.”