Although Austin lost the battle to preserve the Black Artists Matter street mural on East 11th Street and the rainbow crosswalks on Fourth Street, city and community leaders are moving ahead with plans to commemorate the neighborhoods and residents the artwork helped celebrate.

“Black Artists Matter” was emblazoned across East 11th Street, while the crosswalk at the corner of Fourth and Colorado streets maintained a Pride-themed rainbow makeover for several years before Gov. Greg Abbott ordered Texas cities and counties to remove “political or ideological messages” from streets or face funding losses. Austin officials attempted to keep the crosswalk and other installations by asking the Texas Department of Transportation for exemptions, but received word in May that the crosswalk art, the East 11th mural and other similar displays were “not acceptable and do not fully comply” with state and federal guidelines. Despite the loss, the city is moving forward with efforts to honor those districts’ histories, including executing a plan to install a historic marker on Fourth Street.

“Visibility matters. Being seen and celebrated matters,” said Brigitte Bandit, a drag performer who sits on Austin’s LGBTQ Quality of Life Commission. “We do need to replace the crosswalks with other things … The little spaces that we have, they matter.”

In October, Abbott kicked off the initiative to remove ideological road displays in Texas, explaining in a news release that “Texans expect their taxpayer dollars to be used wisely,” rather than advancing “political agendas on Texas roadways.”

In a May 18 letter to Austin’s Transportation and Public Works Department, TxDOT said that if the city did not submit an action plan to remove six street murals across Austin by June 22, it could withhold federal funding or suspend agreements that allow the city to carry out transportation projects.

The City of Austin will be responsible for paying for the materials and labor needed to remove the street markings. The Transportation and Public Works Department is not yet able to provide an estimate of how much the work will cost.

While the city ultimately acquiesced to state pressure, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson assembled a task force to identify new projects to honor the districts where the street markings were located while complying with the state’s directives.

Two events over the coming weekend will honor the neighborhoods where the now-banned street art is displayed. The first will be held Friday at the East 11th Street site where the Black Artists Matter mural is displayed. On Saturday, a new rainbow mural painting celebration is scheduled at the intersections of Fourth and Colorado streets.

“Austin’s love for its entire community cannot be suppressed,” Watson said in a Tuesday statement. “Austin is diverse and vibrant. We take a lot of pride in that. We live it. We intend to show it and celebrate it as Austin does.”

Honoring Fourth Street’s queer history

The city also confirmed it would install a historic marker at Fourth and Colorado Streets, a district where LGBTQ+ Austinites have sought community for decades.

Garry Brown said when he first moved to Austin in the 1980s, Fourth Street’s bars were hubs for education, community programming and support during the AIDS epidemic.

“The only place where you could really find community back then was Fourth and Colorado. At the time, “there were two or three gay bars down there,” he said.

Brown, who sits on the Public Spaces Task Force formed in response to Abbott’s directive to remove the street art, said a new historical marker documenting the district’s significance is expected to be installed in August. He argued that preserving and recognizing the area’s LGBTQ+ history is especially important in the wake of the governor’s directive.

“They’re trying to erase us,” he said. “We have to literally plant a flag, because we’re not going away.”

Preserving East Austin’s Black history

When Clifford Gillard moved to Austin from the Caribbean 40 years ago, the majority of the pedestrians walking on East 11th Street were Black.

“Now you’re only seeing white people with their dogs and on their bikes,” he said. “The history and the legacy of the eastside, particularly the corridors of East 11th and 12th Street, has significantly changed, but we got to remember where we came from.”

Gillard is the president of Capitol View Arts, a nonprofit that supports emerging artists on the eastside. After George Floyd’s death, his organization began exploring ways to honor both Floyd and the district’s legacy. They decided to paint “Black Artists Matter” on East 11th Street in front of Victory Grill, a historic music venue that has hosted prominent Black artists since the 1940s. Gillard and about 20 minority artists painted those bold yellow words on a summer morning in 2020.

“Proud would be an understatement,” he said of the mural’s creation. That pride later gave way to disappointment when he learned “that the powers that be had made that decision, that they were going to remove all street art.”

Gillard said the mural’s message remains relevant and that he is working with the group developing replacement projects for the street art. While no final decisions have been made, Chas Moore, a community advocate who is on the Public Places Task Force, said any future project would honor the people who once predominantly lived in the neighborhood.

“This was a thriving Black community. This was all we had. This was our Austin,” Moore said. “I just don’t want us to be forgotten. I don’t want Black Austin’s cultural fingerprints to not be remembered in Austin’s story.”