Holy Cross Catholic Church and Community

East Austin's Black doctors had a grievance before the church opened a hospital. At Brackenridge, Dr. B. E. Conner recalled, Black and Latino patients were kept in the basement, and Black physicians who won the right to admit patients still could not operate, so he stood in a doorway and watched a white doctor treat his own patient. Father Francis Weber answered with a twenty-bed hospital on the church grounds in 1940. Sister Celine Heitzman reportedly delivered 232 babies there in 1947, and a federal Hill-Burton grant of $164,456 helped pay for its successor.

What the plaque says

Holy Cross Catholic Church and Community In 1936, the Reverend Francis R. Weber, CSC, met with African-American Catholics in the home of William M. Tears and celebrated the first Mass for Holy Cross Catholic Church, the first Catholic Church to serve the needs of Austin's African-Americans. In 1928, the city of Austin laid out a "Negro District," south of the City Cemetery (Oakwood) in East of East Avenue to encourage Austin's black citizens to move to that area. By 1932, most African-Americans lived in East Austin. Parishioners constructed the Holy Cross Church building in 1937. In 1942, the church established Holy Family Catholic Church to serve African American Catholics in South Austin. Recognizing the lack of medical facilities to serve African-Americans, the church established Holy Cross Hospital in 1940, the first hospital in Austin to allow black physicians to practice. From a small facility on the church grounds, Holy Cross Hospital moved to a new building on 19th Street, serving the community until 1989. Sister Mary Celine Heitzman, M.D., one of the first Catholic nuns in the US to become a doctor, was the resident physician from 1940 to 1964. The church established Holy Cross Catholic School in 1941 and taught nursery through 8th grade until 1960. The church community significantly supported and guided educational, social, and political issues affecting the city and state, as many of its parishioners served in elected office, including the Texas legislature's first black Speaker Pro Tem and Austin's first black School Board member. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Cemetery — steps away
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• George Washington Carver Museum — steps away
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.5 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Texas State Capitol — 1.1 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• Blackshear Elementary School — steps away
• Tillotson College — steps away
• Mount Olive Baptist Church — steps away
• George Washington Carver Branch Library — steps away