AUSTIN, Texas — In the neighborhood known as Clarksville, west of downtown Austin, is an area rich with the history of the city’s Black families.
Today, due to gentrification and its proximity to downtown, it has become one of the city’s priciest neighborhoods. But for nearly 100 years, Clarksville was home to Black Americans who had their own schools, churches and stores.
A modest cabin-like home at 1703 Waterston Avenue that dates to the 1870’s is still standing, and has since been renovated and re-opened as a museum. It belonged to Hezekiah Haskell and dates from a time when Clarksville was one of several Freedom Colonies in Austin, where formerly enslaved people found a safe place to live following the Civil War and Emancipation.
The house remained with the Haskell family until the 1970’s, when it was donated to the City of Austin. Today, under a use agreement with Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department, the House is managed and maintained by the Clarksville Community Development Corporation (CCDC), the neighborhood organization for historic Clarksville.
The story of the Haskell House and the Black families who lived in Clarksville is the focus of a fascinating new documentary that can be viewed on the Austin Parks and Recreation Department’s YouTube page.
The video is entitled “Haskell House and the Clarksville Story,” and gives us a view of determination, change and loss for the generations of Black Americans who once called Clarksville their home.