Pauline Brown

Pauline Stewart Brown was born in Austin’s Wheatville Freedman Colony to Archie and Clara Carrington Stewart and moved to Clarksville in 1942. She joined Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church when she was 8 years old and was a mainstay of the church and a frequent choir soloist until her death in 2009.

Pauline was a vocal advocate for her beloved Clarksville. Her family lost their home to MoPac construction, but she built a new home in the neighborhood for her family and continued to fight for Clarksville. She joined her neighbors in successfully opposing construction of a proposed crosstown expressway, which would have destroyed Clarksville. She, Mary Baylor and other Clarksville residents then pressured the City of Austin to provide them with the public services they had long been denied because of racism – sewers, paved streets, sidewalks, drainage improvements, and street lights. Clarksville finally got those services in the late 1970s.

Pauline was one of the founders of the Clarksville Community Development Corporation and a long-time member of the organization’s board of directors. She helped obtain the funding needed to start the organization’s affordable housing program, which continues to operate in Clarksville.

Pauline was an impassioned speaker and often attended meetings of Austin’s Historic Preservation Committee to speak against the demolition of old Clarksville homes. She was also Clarksville’s unofficial historian. In 2002, the Heritage Society of Austin, now Preservation Austin honored Pauline with a Preservation Merit Award for Advocacy.

Information provided by Mary Reed.