Laurine Cecil Anderson
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1853-1938) Born the son of slave parents in Tennessee, Laurine Cecil Anderson attended public schools in Memphis and college at Fisk University in Nashville. He came to Texas in 1880 to accept a position as principal of a training school in Brenham. He married Lizzie Pollard in 1882, and they had four children. After her death, he married Fannie Pollard, and they had one child. In 1884 Governor Oran M. Roberts appointed Anderson principal of Prairie View Normal and Industrial College, now Prairie View A&M University. When the Colored Teachers State Association was formed in Prairie View in 1885, he was elected its first president and served until 1889. In 1896 Anderson resigned his position at Prairie View to become Principal of Austin’s Robertson Hill High School, which was renamed E. H. Anderson High School in 1909 in honor of L. C. Anderson’s brother, also an educator. The school was at the time the only high school for blacks in the city, and L. C. Anderson served as its principal for thirty-two years. L. C. Anderson died January 8, 1938, and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery. Two days after his death the Austin School Board voted unanimously to rename Anderson High School in his honor. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born to enslaved parents in Tennessee in 1853, Laurine Cecil Anderson educated himself at Memphis schools and Fisk University before coming to Texas in 1880 to lead a training school in Brenham. He went on to head what is now Prairie View A&M University, served as founding president of the Colored Teachers State Association, and for thirty-two years led Austin's only high school for Black students. Two days after his death in 1938, the city's school board voted to name that school in his honor.
Why it matters
Anderson's life traces the path from slavery to the front ranks of Black education in post-Reconstruction Texas, building institutions that outlasted him by generations.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Laurine Cecil Anderson was born in Tennessee in 1853, the son of enslaved parents, into a nation still years away from ending slavery. His early life spanned the seismic passage from bondage to freedom, and he came of age in the uncertain, hopeful, and often dangerous years of Reconstruction — a period when education suddenly became both a possibility and a battleground for African Americans across the South.
For formerly enslaved families and their children, schooling was more than personal advancement; it was the foundation on which freedom itself might be built. Institutions like Fisk University in Nashville, where Anderson studied, rose in these years to train a generation of Black teachers and leaders. The demand was enormous and the resources scarce, and those who gained an education often shouldered the duty of extending it to others.
When Anderson came to Texas in 1880, he entered a state where public education for Black children was being built almost from nothing, under the hard constraints of a segregated society. It was demanding, foundational work — the kind that determines whether opportunity exists for those who come after — and it would occupy the whole of his long career.
People & events
Anderson began his Texas work in 1880 as principal of a training school in Brenham. His personal life took shape alongside his professional one: he married Lizzie Pollard in 1882, and they had four children; after her death he married Fannie Pollard, with whom he had one more. In 1884, Governor Oran M. Roberts appointed him principal of Prairie View Normal and Industrial College — the institution known today as Prairie View A&M University — placing him at the head of a school central to training Black educators for the entire state.
His leadership reached beyond any single campus. When the Colored Teachers State Association was formed at Prairie View in 1885, Anderson was elected its first president and served until 1889 — a role that made him a organizing figure for Black teachers across Texas at the very moment their profession was taking shape.
In 1896 he resigned from Prairie View to become principal of Austin's Robertson Hill High School, at the time the only high school for Black students in the city. He would lead it for thirty-two years. The school was renamed E. H. Anderson High School in 1909 in honor of his brother, also an educator — and after Anderson's death on January 8, 1938, the Austin School Board voted unanimously, just two days later, to rename it once more in his own honor. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery.
Its place in the American story
Anderson's life is a single, vivid thread in one of the great American stories: the journey from slavery toward full citizenship, carried forward not by a single dramatic act but by the patient building of institutions. A man born enslaved rose to lead a college and to shape the teaching profession of an entire state — and he did it by making schools where they had not existed.
His work embodies a conviction shared by many Black leaders of his era: that education was the surest ground on which lasting freedom could be built. Leading the only high school for Black students in a growing city for more than three decades meant opening doors for thousands of young people, in a time and place where those doors were deliberately kept few.
The near-instant vote to name a school after him tells its own story. Anderson's influence was measured not in monuments but in the generations of students and teachers who passed through the institutions he led. Those institutions — a university still thriving today, a professional association, a beloved high school carrying his name — outlasted him by generations, which is exactly the kind of legacy he spent his life trying to build.
If you visit
This marker in Austin honors a life rather than a building, so approach it as an invitation to reflect on a remarkable career rooted in this city. Read the span of years — 1853 to 1938 — and let the arc register: a man born into slavery in Tennessee who became one of the foremost Black educators in Texas, and who gave thirty-two years to a single Austin school.
Austin is rich in layered history, and Anderson's story connects to places across the city and state — from his final resting place in Oakwood Cemetery to the legacy of the high school that came to bear his name. For a traveler interested in the history of education and of African American achievement, the marker is a natural anchor for a deeper, self-guided exploration.
Stand for a moment and consider how much of what endures in a community is built quietly, by people who spend their lives running schools rather than seeking headlines. Anderson's name on a school was the city's way of saying that this kind of work mattered — and the marker offers you the same chance to pause and agree.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Old Anderson High School, Kealing Junior High School
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Austin's first high school for Black students opened in 1884 as Robertson Hill School and, through several moves and renamings, became L. C. Anderson High School, honoring a longtime principal. Kealing Junior High, the city's first junior high for Black students, opened on this site in 1930, named for educator Hightower Theodore Kealing, and later merged with the Anderson buildings. The schools here closed in 1971 under court-ordered desegregation, and the old buildings were later razed or lost to fire.
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