by Harold McMillan

Ten years ago I interviewed long-time Austin pianist/vocalist Ernie Mae Miller for the oral history component of the Blues Family Tree Project (BFT). The idea behind the BFT is to connect local blues, jazz, and gospel performers to their lives in pre-integration Black East Austin. Since Austin Downtown Arts is looking at the cultural life of the East Austin of 2000 in the this issue, I thought you might enjoy reading what Ms. Miller had to say a decade ago about growing up in East Austin, just off 11th Street. Excerpts from our conversation follow. By the way, Ernie Mae has been a professional musician in Austin since 1949.

Well, during that time I used to live in that neighborhood. In fact, we lived right behind the Black Cat Inn, and B.B. King used to come there and play. I think it was 25 cents cover charge, but I didn't have to go there. In fact, my kids were real young and we just sat out on our back porch and we would listen and hear it all going on, 'cause it wasn't sound-proofed in that place. Nowadays it's gone, gone, gone. But B.B. King and Bobby Blue Bland and every weekend or something some of those guys would be in there.

Oh yes. I sure did [go to the Harlem Theater]. Sometimes they would have talent shows up there on Saturday. It wasn't a real big thing, but every now and then they would have one and I used to play on that. And Margaret Wright, she played up there too. And that was the only movie...well, we could go to the Ritz theater. We had to sit upstairs. We would go. But anyway, the Harlem Theater, in it's day, was very clean, very nice. We enjoyed the Harlem theater. I wish there was another theater in that area. And I hope some day that both those streets, 11th and 12th, will really be changed and get back. We really did enjoy that. We'd go to the movies! Before you were 11 years old, the movies only cost you five cents and I think it was 15 cents for adults. That was really our movie house.

My grandfather [lived] on Navasota street, L.C. Anderson. L.C. Anderson High School is named for [him]. Our home is over there on Navasota. It's a grand old house and I even want to fix that up and keep it. But I don't know what the neighborhood is, the situation will be in the next few years. Of course, I don't ever believe in stopping progress. That's what has to be done to keep everything alive. I'm just saying that when nothing seems to be done about these places -- and something needs to happen. Sometimes progress might help them. But they don't want to change their ways. We have to change, everything changes.

When I was coming up it was just, it was an integrated neighborhood. And there was Schaefer's grocery store. They were right on the corner; now there is a business on Navasota and Rosewood where the fork in the road [is]. But the Pisca's used to live there. And then further down on 12th street it was a neighborhood -- just everything was, it was integrated. They finally, the whites finally sold out to Negroes in some of those places, but everybody got along just fine up there.

That changed. I'd say it started changing in the '60s really. They started putting up little old motels. Well now, there used to be a Deluxe Motel there after those Pisca's moved. And they had a very nice, kept such a beautiful yard, roses and pretty flowers and everything. Then they bought and had this Deluxe Hotel. But then it perished. It did pretty good for a while. Then it got kind of rundown and it wasn't kept up like it should; so, like all things that are not kept up, they fall to pieces. But now there is a little business corner there. They are trying to do a pretty good job. Across [from] the old Moten home, across the street right at the fork of the road of Rosewood and 11th Street, that's been a historical home. And we used to go to Anderson High School right up on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Everything was just really lovely. I thought when I was a kid that was a very good neighborhood. Now the neighborhood further down has gone and a lot of nice new homes and all, but they don't have any, it's not as congenial as it was. I mean we had everything right there. We really didn't have to go to town. It was just a real...we just all got along perfectly up there.

I remember the Victory Grill. 'Course it wasn't integrated at that time. We all used to go there and we thought that was a real swank place! And you'd go and you had food on the first level there, and you'd go down some little stairs downstairs and they had a nice little club down there. [Johnny Holmes] would, especially on weekends, he'd have bands and combos and it was nice. It was really a lot of the jazz and a lot of musicians played all over 11th Street. There were more places. But it was pretty nice.