blackaustintours

blackaustintours Come disrupt public space and engage with the histories, experiences and contributions of Black people in Austin and beyond.

05/29/2026

One thing about Black Austin Tours: we’re fortunate to work with young people who care deeply about their communities and civic engagement.

Here, , one of our tour guides and Tour Operations Manager, reflects on the importance of young people getting involved and shaping the future. Austin’s history reminds us that change often begins with youth willing to challenge the status quo.

During the 1940s and beyond, young Black Austinites and allies helped push back against segregation in public spaces through organizing, demonstrations, and direct action. Their efforts on Congress Avenue, at the Paramount Theatre, and throughout downtown helped lay the groundwork for a more inclusive city.

Austin did not change overnight, and it did not change on its own. It changed because ordinary people—many of them young people—decided to act.

These are some of the stories we explore on our Downtown Black History Tour, where we examine the vital role Black Austinites played in shaping the city we know today, including the foundations of the Live Music Capital of the World.

05/27/2026

John Fisher, the artist behind Voices of East Austin on the exterior wall of the George Washington Carver Museum & Library, is truly an artistic genius. Many people see the mural, but don’t fully realize the depth of what they’re looking at.

Here, John explains the meaning behind the figure looking upward in the mural, a Blacksmith figure inspired by Dogon cosmology and beliefs about the world. He shares how the blacksmith represents the use of natural elements to create life force, transformation, and meaning.

What also makes this mural so important is the lineage behind it. Many people don’t know that while studying at Texas Southern University under legendary African American artists John T. Biggers and Alvia Wardlaw, John Fisher also received a fellowship from the Ford Foundation that allowed him to travel to West Africa to study different Indigenous artistic traditions and practices. Those experiences deeply influenced his artistic vision and can still be seen throughout his work here in Austin.

John Fisher is an Austinite, and this is one of the most important murals in the city of Austin. Sometimes on tour we get lucky enough to run into him while he’s restoring the mural and hear directly from the artist himself about the layers of history, culture, spirituality, and Black artistic tradition embedded into the work.

This is why public art matters. 🎨

05/24/2026

One of the central questions behind Gone to Texas is how we tell truthful stories about slavery while centering the humanity of the people who lived through it and the descendants who carry those stories forward.

Too often, narratives about slavery focus on enslavers, traders, and systems of power. Their names fill the archives. Yet people like Hemsley Coursey, who was trafficked through the domestic slave trade and ultimately forced to Texas, are too often reduced to a line in a ledger, a census record, or a bill of sale.

Gone to Texas asks a different question: What happens when we place the lives, humanity, and legacies of the enslaved at the center of the story?

That question guides every aspect of this project. We want to tell a truthful story about violence, displacement, and loss without allowing those realities to eclipse the humanity, resilience, and enduring presence of the people who survived. More than 190 years after Hemsley Coursey was sold south, his descendants are still here.

That is one reason working with and his team felt so important. Stephen’s commitment to incorporating live models transforms public art into something more than a static monument. It creates a living connection between past and present, ancestor and descendant, history and memory.

Gone to Texas is not simply about what happened. It is about who it happened to, who survived, and how their stories continue to live through us.

05/20/2026

There’s no better artist for Gone to Texas than .

intentionally approached Stephen because of his belief that art should continue telling stories long after its creation. As Stephen often says, he loves working with live models because they carry a lineage. Their families and descendants will one day be able to point to the work and say: “I know that person. That’s my family.”

That vision is central to Gone to Texas.

For this project, Jaiden honors his 6th great-grandfather, Hemsley Coursey, who was trafficked from Maryland, sold in New Orleans in 1835 at 17 years old, and ultimately forced into Texas through the domestic slave trade.

This is a glimpse into Stephen Hayes’ artistic process and the descendant-centered storytelling shaping this work. We are also working to involve additional descendants connected to these histories.

Big announcements are coming soon for those interested in participating.

Funded in part by the City of Austin Elevate Grant.

05/19/2026

At Black Austin Tours, we value research. Much of the history we share comes from archives, oral histories, and sources like the WPA Slave Narratives, over 2,000 interviews conducted with formerly enslaved people between 1936–1938.

These narratives are powerful, but they must also be approached critically. Many interviewers were white during the Jim Crow era, which shaped how some stories were told. At the same time, these accounts remain some of the most important firsthand testimonies we have from people who survived enslavement.

This is why guides like engage deeply with research and archival materials. We believe this history should not stay hidden in archives or academic spaces, but be accessible to the public and shared with the community.

Make sure to check out that was started by Mason! He’s an excellent researcher and public historian!

05/17/2026

Gone to Texas (GTT) is rooted in the belief that descendants must play a role in how these histories are told.

What began as genealogical research and archival digging led me ( )to Hemsley Coursey, my ancestor, who appeared in the historical record as cargo in the domestic slave trade. He trafficked from Maryland to New Orleans in 1835 at the age of 17 abroad a vessel named The Palestine.

This project turns archival data into descendant engagement, memory, and public storytelling through art. We found records of violence and separation, but also records of life, love, survival, and family. Hemsley later spoke lovingly of his wife and children in his will, reminding us that slavery was a part of his story, but not the entirety of his humanity.

Through GTT, we are reclaiming these narratives in public space alongside artist , using sculpture and descendant collaboration to tell this history in a deeply human way.

Supported in part by the City of Austin Elevate Grant.by the City of Austin Elevate Grant.

05/17/2026

The Texas State Capitol is the most visited tourist site in Austin. But what most visitors are never told is that incarcerated laborers, disproportionately Black men, women, and children trapped in Texas’ convict leasing system after emancipation, helped shape and construct this massive symbol of the state.

Yesterday on tour, we had the rare opportunity to run into legendary Austin artist John Fisher while he was touching up his iconic Voyage to Soulsville mural at the George Washington Carver Library. Even more powerful was hearing him explain the deeper meaning layered into the work from his own mouth.

In one section of the mural, Fisher depicts incarcerated laborers around the Capitol rotunda, forcing viewers to confront the hidden labor and exploitation tied to the building of Texas itself. It’s a history often absent from the Capitol tours and official narratives.

This is why we believe Voyage to Soulsville is one of the most important murals in Austin. It tells the story of Texas and Austin from the Black perspective, honestly and unapologetically.

If you want to understand the deeper histories hidden in plain sight across Austin, come take the tour with us. See dates in the bio to book!

05/15/2026

As part of the Gone to Texas project, Jaiden and I visited Historic Stagville, one of the largest sites of enslavement and forced labor in North Carolina.

It was important for us to experience this space because the story we are telling through this project did not happen in isolation. The forced movement of enslaved people deeper into the South to places like Texas disrupted families, reshaped communities, and forever altered generations of Black life in America.

At Stagville, the focus is not centered on glorifying enslavers, but on acknowledging the lives, labor, resistance, and humanity of the people who were enslaved there. Visiting this site helped deepen our understanding of the violence of slavery and the systems that helped create places like Texas as we know them today.

For Jaiden, a direct descendant connected to this history, this was more than a visit. It was part of understanding how these histories live within us and continue to shape the present.

This research and storytelling process is part of Gone to Texas, supported through the City of Austin Elevate Grant, in collaboration with artist and the development of a new public sculpture project exploring memory, forced migration, and Black life.

05/15/2026

“Not just a tour — an experience that stays with you.” 🖤

Thank you to everyone who trusts us to tell these stories, hold these histories, and create meaningful moments across Austin and beyond. Every tour is rooted in research, storytelling, and community. 🙏🏾✨

05/12/2026

Standing in front of the “Voyage of Souls” mural at George Washington Carver Museum, Cultural and Genealogy Center, speaks about something that still lives all across the Black Atlantic: African retentions.

The rhythms, beliefs, aesthetics, movements, and cultural practices that survived slavery and continue to shape Afro-descendant across the diaspora.;

What makes this moment even more powerful is that the mural itself carries those same connections.

Artist John Fisher, who studied under John Biggers at , received a Ford Fellowship that allowed him to travel throughout West Africa to study artistic traditions, symbolism, and techniques from different African ethnic groups. Those influences are woven throughout “Voyage of Souls” in its geometry, figures, patterns, and storytelling.

The mural is not just public art. It is a visual reminder that African culture did not disappear. It transformed, traveled, survived, and continues to live within Black communities throughout the Americas.

Come experience these stories with us.

05/11/2026

The Freedmen’s Bureau archives continue to reveal powerful stories about the realities of emancipation in Texas.

In Hills Prairie, Bastrop, Texas, we find the story of Moses Hill, a formerly enslaved Black man, who filed a complaint against Thomas Jefferson Baytop Hill after being denied payment for his labor and subjected to violence. After enduring repeated beatings, Moses fought back.

These records remind us that emancipation did not end exploitation or violence overnight. But they also show how formerly enslaved people used their labor, legal complaints, and limited access to wages to begin building independent Black communities and freedom colonies like St. John Colony.

The Freedmen’s Bureau records are free to access on Take time to look through the “Complaints” sections. There are generations of stories waiting to be uncovered.

Address

Austin, TX
78759

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when blackaustintours posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to blackaustintours:

Shortcuts

Share

Category