Austin-East is the successor to two formerly
racially segregated 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.
Austin High School Austin High School opened in 1879. It was named for Emily Austin, a white woman from
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who raised money to establish the school as Knoxville's first Black
high school. She had arrived in Knoxville in 1870 with the goal of helping to educate
African American children, who at the time were schooled in
church basements, lodge halls, and
one-room schoolhouses scattered throughout the area. For eight years she worked as a
grade school teacher in
Black schools in Knoxville, then she returned to the
North to seek donations for establishment of a high school for Black students. She succeeded in raising $6,500, which was matched by $2,000 from the Knoxville Board of Education to start Austin High School. 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. The school graduated a total of 17 classes before its merger with Austin High School in 1968. Its sports teams were called the "Mountaineers." In 1987, authority for the school shifted from the
city of Knoxville to Knox County when the city school system was consolidated into
Knox County Schools. In 1997, the school received magnet school designation, offering a focus in performing arts, science and math. 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 Black. After several years of failing to meet performance benchmarks set under the
No Child Left Behind Act, 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 Black 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 shot, that the
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation originally incorrectly blamed on Thompson. After a controversy surrounding the
police body camera 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, a prominent national civil rights lawyer representing the families of
George Floyd,
Breonna Taylor and
Daunte Wright. 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 announced that at the end of the school year on June 12, 2021, the Knoxville Police Department would 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 Foster 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 men, as shown by the store's video footage. Foster was concurrently charged in federal court with making a
straw purchase of the gun for Thompson. ==Magnet program==