East Austin Texas Blues History

The Daily Texan has a short article on the dying east Austin blues and jazz scene. East Austin was the black business district of the area, and much like Memphis's Beale, Kansas City's Vine, and Des Moines's Center Street, when segregation ended in the mid 60s, and the urban renewal movement gained momentum the music of the area died. What is interesting is that this pretty much happened all over the US. It is sad that some great cultural areas became lost, or in the case of Memphis remade to such an extent that it wasn't recognizable. However, many areas are trying to at least document what happened during the heyday of theses areas. Oral history projects are a great ways to record local history. Hopefully more cities will take up these projects.