Culture, Arts, & Music

Kenny Dorham's Backyard

The East End Cultural Heritage District contains many of Austin’s most historically significant African American cultural institutions, organizations, and venues. For this community, years of racial segregation also resulted in the establishment, and continued development and nurturance, of forms of expressive culture firmly rooted in Black America’s connection to the cultural traditions of Africa.

Featured Articles: Culture, Arts, & Music

Whose Blues?: Race Relations and Segregation on the East Austin Blues Scene

"A literary and musical form . . . a fusion of music and poetry accomplished at a very high emotional temperature . . . these are different ways of describing the same thing. A gigantic field of feeling . . . that’s a way of describing something enduring, something that could be limitless. How much thought . . . can be hidden in a few short lines of poetry? How much history can be transmitted by pressure on a guitar string? The thought of generations, the history of every human being who’s ever felt the blues come down like showers of rain."