Saturday, June 22, we celebrated Juneteenth at the Neill-Cochran House Museum (NCHM) in Austin, Texas. For the past 18 months our team has worked on the restoration and interpretation of the slave quarters that is situated behind the main house. Both structures date to the mid-1850s, just a few years after the founding of Austin. This building is the last in situ, intact slave quarters remaining in Austin.

Although the house museum is located on a relatively small parcel of land, and it is now surrounded by the West Campus of the University of Texas, we were still able to develop an interpretive plan that tells the 500-year history of enslavement in Texas. The interpretive tours that we structured range from impersonal and didactic materials at the beginning, to a personal/dialogic approach when the tour finally ends at a contemplative garden.
After Michael Barnes’ article made the front page of the Austin American-Stateman (and was subsequently covered by several Gannett papers around the country), the Saturday event attracted hundreds of people from throughout the community as well as central Texas. And, in a city with a declining Black population, 40-50% of those who attended the event were African-American.

[I will also add that in a time when certain Austin park events are increasingly expensive and exclusive, the NCHM provided the day’s events (including lunch) for free.]

The NCHM is an excellent example of how a rather traditional house museum can redefine itself through strong leadership, key partnerships, a bold (even risky) interpretive strategy, and truth telling.

Thanks to Dr. Tara A. Dudley, Assistant Professor in The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, and Dr. Rowena Dasch, Executive Director at the NCHM, for being such incredible partners and leaders in this effort.

For those interested in learning more about the house museum, here is a link to the website: https://www.nchmuseum.org/