Austin-East High School, also known as Austin-East Magnet High School, is a public high school in Knoxville, Tennessee, operated by Knox County Schools.The school includes a magnet school program in performing arts.HistoryAustin-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 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 black high school. She succeeded in raising $6,500, which was matched by $2,000 from the Knoxville Board of Education to start Austin High School.
