Austin-East High School, also known as Austin-East Magnet High School, is a public
high school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
in
Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Di ...
, operated by
Knox County Schools
Knox County Schools is the school district that operates all public schools in Knox County, Tennessee.
History
Before the 1987–1988 school year, the city of Knoxville and Knox County operated separate school districts. In that year the two ...
.
The school includes a
magnet school
In the U.S. education system, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities (usually school boards) as school ...
program in
performing arts
The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perform ...
.
History
Austin-East is the successor to two formerly
racially segregated
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
schools, the all-black Austin High School and the all-white East High School. The two schools were combined in 1968 to form the
integrated Austin East High School, housed in the East High School building.
[Robert J. Booker]
Austin High School (1879-1968)
''A Profile of African Americans in Tennessee History'', Tennessee State University
Tennessee State University (Tennessee State, Tenn State, or TSU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, it is the only state-funded historically black university in Tenness ...
website, accessed April 7, 2011
Austin High School opened in 1879. It was named for Emily Austin, a white woman from
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, who raised money to establish the school as Knoxville's first black
high school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
. She had arrived in Knoxville in 1870 with the goal of helping to educate
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
children, who at the time were schooled in
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
basements, lodge halls, and
one-room schoolhouse
One-room schools, or schoolhouses, were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain. In most rural and s ...
s scattered throughout the area. For eight years she worked as a
grade school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...
teacher in
black school
Black schools, also referred to as "colored" schools, were racially segregated schools in the United States that originated after the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. The phenomenon began in the late 1860s during Reconstruction era ...
s in Knoxville, then she returned to the
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography.
Etymology
T ...
to seek donations for establishment of a black high school. She succeeded in raising $6,500, which was matched by $2,000 from the Knoxville Board of Education to start Austin High School.
[
]Edenton, North Carolina
Edenton is a town in, and the county seat of, Chowan County, North Carolina, United States, on Albemarle Sound. The population was 4,397 at the 2020 census. Edenton is located in North Carolina's Inner Banks region. In recent years Edenton has be ...
, native John W. Manning became school principal
A head master, head instructor, bureaucrat, headmistress, head, chancellor, principal or school director (sometimes another title is used) is the teacher, staff member of a school with the greatest responsibility for the management of the school ...
in 1881, the first black person to hold that position. An 1881 graduate of Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
, Manning remained as principal until retiring in 1912. He was succeeded as principal by Charles W. Cansler
Charles Warner Cansler (May 15, 1871 – November 1, 1953) was an American educator, civil rights advocate, and author, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. A grandson of William Scott, a pioneering Black American publisher, and the ...
, who had been teaching at Austin since 1900.[
In 1916, Austin High School left its initial location on Central Street in Knoxville to move to a new building on Payne Avenue. At the Payne Avenue location, the school was renamed Knoxville Colored High School. By 1928, that school building had become overcrowded due to a growing African American population, and the school moved to a new location on Vine Street, once again using the Austin High School name.][ William A. Robinson became school principal in 1928. Robinson served for just two years before moving to ]Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
and being succeeded as principal by Thomas R. Davis. Davis was principal until his death in 1948, when Dean of Girls Fannie C. Clay assumed the position of acting principal until the appointment of Otis T. Hogue as principal in the fall of 1949.[ In 1952 Austin moved to a new modern building one block from its previous location, remaining there until its merger with East High School.][
East High School was one of four schools, the others being ]West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
, South (now South-Doyle), and Fulton
Fulton may refer to:
People
* Robert Fulton (1765–1815), American engineer and inventor who developed the first commercially successful steam-powered ship
* Fulton (surname)
Given name
* Fulton Allem (born 1957), South African golfer
* Fult ...
, that opened in 1951 following the split-up of old Knoxville High.[John Shearer]
Historic Knoxville High Recognized for Classic Revival Detailing
''Knoxville News Sentinel'', May 28, 2010. Retrieved: April 8, 2011. Initially an all-white school, East began to enroll black students in the early 1960s as the Knoxville city schools underwent a slow process of racial integration.[John Shearer]
Students, leaders made integration successful
''Knoxville News Sentinel
The ''Knoxville News Sentinel, also known as Knox News,'' is a daily newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, owned by the Gannett Company.
History
The newspaper was formed in 1926 from the merger of two competing newspapers: ''The ...
'', February 13, 2011 The school graduated a total of 17 classes before its merger with Austin High School in 1968.[Reunion brings together Knoxville East High School students]
WBIR-TV, September 4, 2010 Its sports teams were called the "Mountaineers."[
In 1968 the two schools, which were only some eight to ten ]block
Block or blocked may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting
* Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting
* W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...
s apart, were combined to form a single racially integrated high school located in the East High building and named Austin East High School.[ The Austin school site became the location of Vine Middle School.][ Following the merger, many white students from East High transferred to other high schools, leaving Austin-East as a predominantly black school.][John Shearer]
Experiences from merger formed coach; Torbush helped ease Austin-East transition
''Knoxville News Sentinel
The ''Knoxville News Sentinel, also known as Knox News,'' is a daily newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, owned by the Gannett Company.
History
The newspaper was formed in 1926 from the merger of two competing newspapers: ''The ...
'', February 13, 2011
In 1987, authority for the school shifted from the city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
of Knoxville to Knox County when the city school system was consolidated into Knox County Schools
Knox County Schools is the school district that operates all public schools in Knox County, Tennessee.
History
Before the 1987–1988 school year, the city of Knoxville and Knox County operated separate school districts. In that year the two ...
.
In 1997, the school received magnet school designation, offering a focus in performing arts, science and math.[Austin-East High School (profile)]
''Knoxville News Sentinel'' website, accessed April 8, 2011 In spite of the magnet program, which was intended to boost white enrollment, as of 2008-2009 more than 80% of Austin-East's students were African American. After several years of failing to meet performance benchmarks set under the No Child Left Behind Act
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was a U.S. Act of Congress that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; it included Title I provisions applying to disadvantaged students. It supported standards-based education ...
, in 2008-2009 the school was reorganized into small learning communities.
April 2021 shooting
On April 12, 2021, at around 3:15 pm EDT, a shooting occurred at the Austin-East High School.
A 17-year-old African-American student, Anthony Thompson Jr., was shot and killed by the police during an armed struggle in the school's bathroom as the police were responding to a domestic violence call involving Thompson. Another police officer was wounded by a friendly fire
In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy/hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while eng ...
shot, that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is the state bureau of investigation of the state of Tennessee. It has statutory authority to conduct criminal investigations and make arrests of crimes occurring throughout the state. The bureau is ...
originally incorrectly blamed on Thompson.
After a controversy surrounding the police body camera
In policing equipment, a body camera or wearable camera, also known as body-worn video (BWV), body-worn camera (BWC), or bodycam, is a wearable audio, video, or photographic recording system used by police to record events in which law enforc ...
footage in the case, the DA Charme Allen released the footage and other video evidence on April 21, 2021 and announced that no officers involved in the incident would face any charges.[ ] The event resulted in ongoing racial justice protests in the community[ ][ ] as well as outside of Tennessee. The students have been staging daily walkouts at 3:15 p.m. to mark the approximate time of Thompson's death and demand police reform. Anthony Thompson's family is represented by Ben Crump
Benjamin Lloyd Crump (born October 10, 1969) is an American attorney who specializes in civil rights and catastrophic personal injury cases such as wrongful death lawsuits. His practice has focused on cases such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, ...
, a prominent national civil rights lawyer representing the families of George Floyd
George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African-American man who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have used a counterfeit twe ...
, Breonna Taylor
Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman, was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment on March 13, 2020, when at least seven police officers forced entry into the apartment as part of an investigation into drug dealing op ...
and Daunte Wright
On April 11, 2021, Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was fatally shot by police officer Kimberly Potter during a traffic stop and attempted arrest for an outstanding Arrest warrant, warrant in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, United States. Aft ...
.[ ][ ]
The mother of Thompson's girlfriend expressed regret for calling the police regarding Thompson's fight with her daughter in the events before the shooting. The Knoxville Police Department was investigating a possible retaliatory arson at her home on April 25.
Following several weeks of protests and controversy about the role of uniformed police officers at schools after Thompson's death, Knoxville's mayor Indya Kincannon
Indya Kincannon (born March 30, 1971) is an American politician who serves as the 69th Mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee since 2019. She won the 2019 mayoral election with more than 52% of the runoff vote over opponent Eddie Mannis. She is Knoxville' ...
announced that at the end of the school year on June 12, 2021 the Knoxville Police Department will withdraw its uniformed officers stationed at Knox County schools.
On May 14 the DA announced that a local man, Kelvon Foster, 21, had been charged in state court with illegally providing a gun to Anthony Thompson. The prosecutors allege that Forster bought the 9mm Glock on April 12 for Thompson at a local gun and pawn shop, with Thompson present for the transaction with two other males, as shown by the store's video footage. Forster was concurrently charged in federal court with making a straw purchase of the gun for Thompson.
Magnet program
The Austin-East magnet program in performing arts operates as a "school-within-a-school." Specialized offerings include dance
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...
, theater, vocal and instrumental music, and finance and business.[
]
Sports
Austin-East fields interscholastic teams in football, soccer
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
, basketball, baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
, softball
Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...
, cross country, track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...
, marching band, wrestling
Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...
, volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...
. The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA) classifies the school's football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
team in Class 3A Its sports teams are nicknamed "Roadrunners." The boys' basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
team won the state championship in 1977 (AAA), 1985(AA), and 1987 (AA).[TSSAA website]
, accessed July 25, 2011 The football team won the Class 2A state championship in 1983, 1986, and the Class 3A state championship in 2001. In 2007, Austin-East won the state championship in Class AA girls' basketball. The boys track team won state championships in 1981(AAA) and 1987(A/AA). The girls track team won the A/AA championship in 1986, 1987, 1988, and 2007.
Notable alumni
* Bianca Belair
Bianca Blair Crawford (born Bianca Nicole Blair; April 9, 1989) is an American professional wrestler and a fitness and figure competitor. She is currently signed to WWE, where she performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Bianca Belair, and ...
, WWE
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vario ...
professional wrestler and former track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...
athlete at the University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...
* Daniel Brown, the first African American to serve as mayor of Knoxville
* Joey Clinkscales, NFL player and executive (attended in the late 1970s and early 1980s)
* Beauford Delaney
Beauford Delaney (December 30, 1901 – March 26, 1979) was an American modernist painter. He is remembered for his work with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as his later works in abstract expressionism following his move ...
and Joseph Delaney
Joseph Henry Delaney (25 July 1945 – 16 August 2022) was an English author, known for his dark fantasy series ''Spook's''. He started his career as a teacher and wrote science fiction and fantasy novels for adults under the pseudonym J. K. H ...
, artists (attended in the 1910s)
* Joe Fishback, former NFL player, two-time Super Bowl Champion (1987 graduate)
* Nikki Giovanni
Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. (born June 7, 1943) is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African-American poets,Jane M. Barstow, Yolanda Williams Page (eds)"Nikki Giovanni" ''E ...
, poet (attended 1958–1960)
* Paul Hogue
Paul H. "Duke" Hogue (April 28, 1940 – August 17, 2009) was an American basketball player.
Early life
Hogue grew up on Wilson Avenue in Knoxville, Tennessee and played basketball at Austin High School, an all-black high school where his fat ...
, basketball player, two-time NCAA champion with Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
, first-round pick in 1962 NBA Draft
* Raleigh McKenzie
Raleigh McKenzie (born February 8, 1963) is a former American football guard and center. During a 16-year football career, he played for four different teams. Raleigh played guard for the Washington Redskins from 1985 to 1994. Nicknamed "Rallo", ...
, former NFL player, two-time Super Bowl champion
* Reggie McKenzie, NFL player and executive, valedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title for the highest-performing student of a graduating class of an academic institution.
The valedictorian is commonly determined by a numerical formula, generally an academic institution's grade point average (GPA ...
for the Austin-East Class of 1981, two-time Super Bowl champion (1981 graduate)
* Sam McKenzie, member of the Tennessee House of Representatives
The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee.
Constitutional requirements
According to the state constitution of 1870, this body is to consis ...
* Leroy Thompson
Leroy Thompson (born January 23, 1971) is a former fullback/linebacker in the Arena Football League for 13 years. He has played for the Albany / Indiana Firebirds (1996–2004), the New Orleans VooDoo (2005) and the Columbus Destroyers (2006â ...
, former NFL athlete, All-American football player who led Austin-East to a football, basketball, and track state championship his senior year (1987 graduate)
* Carl Torbush
Carl William Torbush Jr. (born October 11, 1951) is former American football and baseball coach. He served as the head football coach at Louisiana Tech University in 1987, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1997 to 2000, and Ea ...
, football coach, attended East High School and remained at Austin-East after the merger for his senior year, graduating in the merged school's first class. He played several sports in high school and was the first Austin-East football player to receive all-state recognition. Torbush recalls being the only white student on some of his senior-year sports teams.[
* ]Elston Turner
Elston Howard Turner Sr. (born June 10, 1959) is an American former professional basketball player who currently works as an assistant coach for the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Playing career
A 6'5" (1.96 ...
, NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
player and coach, played on the school's 1977 state championship basketball team (1977 graduate)About Elston
, Elston Turner Basketball Camp website, accessed April 9, 2011
References
External links
*
{{authority control
Schools in Knoxville, Tennessee
Educational institutions established in 1879
Public high schools in Tennessee
Magnet schools in Tennessee
African-American history in Knoxville, Tennessee
1879 establishments in Tennessee