Kathleen Blackshear: The First Stroke of a Journey

Introduction:

Students at Navasota High School in Texas developed content-rich websites that explored "journey stories" in their community. Participating students interviewed family, friends, and other residents as part of their official Youth Access Grant local history projects, supported by Museum on Main Street in 2013-14. 

In this story, a student researched Kathleen Blackshear, a turn-of-the-20th-century abstract artist whose support and patronage of African-American students and artists ran contrary to her family's slave-holding past. 

The content below is extracted from Austin's website.

An interview with Blackshear's great niece, Janet Davis, is included with the media files below.