As a child attending Blackshear Elementary in East Austin, Carl Settles didn’t fully understand the world around him. His family had moved to Austin for his father’s graduate studies, and life in the city’s Black community didn’t carry any unusual significance. It was just his life.

The many nuances of East Austin’s past, the neighborhoods shaped by racially motivated decisions, the 1928 Plan that forced communities of color to almost entirely relocate east of Interstate 35, was unfamiliar history. Of course, as he notes, “I was four or five years old. You don’t really have the weight of it all when you’re that young.”

But years later, when the deeper meaning of those neighborhoods and the forces that shaped them began to register, Settles realized that he had missed out on the stories that might have helped him better connect to everything around him. 

That delayed understanding helped motivate Settles to found E4 Youth, a nonprofit that trains young creatives to document their communities. 

Now, following years in temporary homes – such as Capital Factory’s downtown location and Austin Community College’s Highland campus — E4 Youth is moving into a permanent home in the historic Rosewood Courts development – a place tied to East Austin’s rich and segregated past. In many ways, it’s ground zero for the stories that shaped the neighborhood, stories E4 Youth aims to help a new generation reclaim, preserve, and carry forward before they disappear.

Tales to be told

Over the last several years, E4 Youth has collected roughly 100 oral histories from longtime East Austin residents, recording and transcribing firsthand accounts of neighborhood life, displacement, and continuity. 

High school students, guided by college-age and early career creatives, conduct the interviews, which are then used as source material for work ranging from short documentaries to poetry and visual art. Stories are archived, and some are preserved through partnerships with local institutions.

“What we are doing is really providing Austin with a lens into itself,” Settles said.

The oral histories are part of a broader program that includes creative mentorship, workforce development, and career pipeline work in fields such as media, advertising, and design. 

That work takes shape through a mix of community-based projects that extend beyond traditional classroom assignments. In recent years, students have documented events such as the Urban Music & Cultural Festival, worked with historic Black churches marking major anniversaries, and contributed to collaborative efforts with local groups focused on preserving East Austin’s built environment and cultural identity.

Florinda Bryant, E4 Youth’s director of education, said that the process is designed to push students beyond simply learning technical skills.

“We’re creating a practice for community members to really learn to listen to each other,” she said. “Not just to hear a story and move on, but to sit with it, to understand where someone is coming from, and why that story matters. That’s something that stays with you.”

This approach shapes how people engage with E4 Youth’s growing body of work. Bryant said the goal is not only to document change, but also to capture the full range of lived experience within different communities.

“It’s not just about the trauma,” she said. “It’s also about their joy.”

Collecting the past

At any given time, E4 Youth works with about 20 college-age and early career participants, many from local institutions such as Huston-Tillotson University and the University of Texas at Austin. 

Before being sent out into the field, students are given training by the older participants that focuses on interview techniques, cultural context, and what Bryant describes as a “caretaker” mindset when working with community members. 

Settles said an emphasis on listening and ownership is designed to ensure that the stories being collected remain rooted in the communities they come from. The goal is to avoid the feeling of someone “parachuting” into an unfamiliar setting and extracting stories for a completely different audience.

“What we’re trying to do is just create that connection between people, between generations, and between the stories that shape a place and the people who are still living in it,” Settles said. 

“A lot of times, you take someone’s story, and then it becomes about you,” he added. “We’re not trying to Columbus their story.”

A path forward

For those involved in gathering the stories, the process can extend beyond creative work into career development and personal direction.

James Grandberry first connected with E4 Youth in 2017 while searching for a path forward after college.

After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in journalism, Grandberry struggled to find his professional footing, cycling through jobs that didn’t feel like the right fit. 

A chance meeting with Settles at a networking event led to an introduction to the organization and, eventually, connections to mentors and programs in Austin’s advertising community that helped him build a portfolio and get a job in advertising.

With more than six years as a copywriter at a local agency, Grandberry said his work with E4 Youth was as much about personal growth as creative training: “I was floundering in my career and a lot of what we were doing with those kids was just getting them to believe that they were creative. That’s what I needed, too.”

Coming home

The connection between place and purpose is central to E4 Youth’s next phase as it prepares to move into Rosewood Courts, a move made possible through an agreement tied to the city’s broader redevelopment efforts at the site.

For Bryant, the move carries a more personal dimension. She has generations of family history in the neighborhood and said the upcoming move “feels like I’m coming home.”

Settles said E4 Youth is a living body of work that supports both storytelling and professional development.

“This work is really about making sure people have a way to understand where they come from,” Settles said. “Because if you don’t have that, it’s hard to understand where you’re going.”

Chad Swiatecki is a 30-year journalist who relocated to Austin from his home state of Michigan in 2008. He most enjoys covering the intersection of arts, business and local/state politics. He has written for Rolling Stone, Spin, New York Daily News, Texas Monthly, Austin Monitor, Austin Business Journal, Austin American-Statesman and many other regional and national outlets.