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Black Austin Matters is painted across Congress Avenue.
Spanning across three blocks on Congress Avenue, "Black Austin Matters" is now painted on the street in downtown Austin. Austin follows other big cities—Washington D.C., Sacramento, Oakland and Raleigh among them—which have completed similar projects amid protests against police brutality.
(Austonia)
Congress Avenue is a canvas of our city. From marathons to marches, stories are made here. Some don’t have the chan… https://t.co/IRzjdJFdnb— ATX Transportation (@ATX Transportation)1592311192.0
At 1:21 p.m., Austin Justice Coalition's executive director and cofounder Chas Moore took to Twitter to clarify that the city helped with stenciling and the logistics of the project—and that all the black artists were getting paid.
Moore tweeted the mural was to make a statement about how racist Austin is. He also tweeted why they went with "Black Austin Matters," instead of "Black Lives Matter."
"How can 'Black Lives Matter' to Austin and the majority of people that live in Austin, if they don't even care about the Black people in the City? So until Black Austin Matters... the City, and the people in the city can't graduate to Black Lives Matter."
Danny Russo, 52, was on a morning run when he came across a blocked-off Congress Avenue at Sixth Street. He snapped a photo that he posted to Instagram. At the time, only the outline was completed.
"It shows the solidarity of the city with the Black Lives Matter movement," Russo said. "I've seen it in other cities, and I think it's amazing they are putting it in Austin."
Washington, D.C. and Sacramento, Calif. are two other cities with Black Lives Matter painted on the street in the wake of a call for racial equality with protests for the end of police brutality.
Black Lives Matter on the street in Washington, D.C. - https://t.co/YecoR3PAjI https://t.co/vr5TM6hidn— THE INSPIRATION (@THE INSPIRATION)1591503953.0
“Black Lives Matter” painted on the street leading to California’s State Capital Building! ✊🏽 || 🎥 Instagram/Bamr_t… https://t.co/EqeiPV0P3G— BET (@BET)1591565248.0
Another mural is set to go up on the East Side of Austin on Thursday.
This story has been updated with additional comments from Chas Moore.
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Popular
From the California coast to Scandanavia, here's where each Austin FC player is from. (Claire Partain)
Austin FC's first signee, Rodney Redes, hails from Paraguay. So does the club's first Designated Player, Cecilio Dominguez. Five other players' hometowns are in South America, while five others are from Europe or Africa. While most on the roster signed to Austin FC from other MLS teams, Austin FC players have played as far north as Finland, as far east as Israel and as far south as Argentina.
English and Spanish are the most spoken languages on the team, although Zan Kolmanic speaks Slovenian and the club is well-traveled, too: Jon Gallagher has lived in six countries, while Kekuta Manneh, the club's only true Austinite, left behind all he knew in Gambia to move to the city in high school.
The multiculturalism on the pitch goes hand-in-hand with the city of Austin itself. Over 30% of the city's population is of Hispanic or Latino descent, and Austin is a majority-minority city (meaning non-Hispanic Whites make up less than 50% of the population).
It's brought even the most unlikely groups together; while supporters of Liga MX and the English Premier League used to be on opposite sides of the bar, now they come together in green.
Jorge Chavez, a member of Austin FC fan club Austin Anthem, said that Austin FC helps unite a city full of travelers and move-ins.
"A lot people here are from all these different places, and they might not have that much in common with each other, but now they do," Chavez said.
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Austin's tech industry is hardly insulated from the post-pandemic labor shortage. Its workers stand to benefit as a result. (Joe Jungmann/CC)
"We are living in times when the employees are the king or the queen," said Angelos Angelou, founder and CEO of local consulting firm AngelouEconomics.
A talent center
Lured by the state's business-friendly climate and Austin's growing tech scene, California-based companies such as Tesla, Oracle and TikTok built factories, relocated headquarters and opened offices. Austin posted the highest tech migration rate of any city in the country between May 2020 and April 2021, according to a recent LinkedIn analysis.
With so many new resident businesses, job growth kept pace. The Austin metro ranked fourth nationally for tech job postings growth in March, according to Silicon Valley Bank's latest State of the Markets report.
Oracle relocated its headquarters to the Riverside location in Austin. (Shutterstock)
To fill these roles, local tech companies have to look beyond the city limits. Employers poach from their competitors, recruit recent graduates from area colleges and universities or look to the national labor market for talent, Angelou said.
Summer Salazar, director of employer engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, has seen a huge influx in tech sector job postings on the university's job board in recent months. "We feel that demand," she said.
An employee's market
Jaime Cabrera, 28, recently graduated from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and is looking for a policy job at a social media company. He didn't go into his job search with plans to stay in Austin but has seen various intriguing openings, citing Bumble, Lyft and TikTok. "I didn't realize how many companies are here," he said.
The tech labor market also affects employees who are not looking for a new job but instead seeking better benefits or internal policy changes from their current employer.
Lawrence Humphrey, 27, lives in North Austin and works for IBM. Shortly after the murder of George Floyd, he co-founded Tech Can Do Better, which advocates for a more equitable industry. Since then, there has been little quantitative progress in terms of more diverse hiring and other metrics. But there has been a qualitative shift. "Issues around racial equity are just far more of a priority from the perspective of the employees, so therefore it's far more of a priority for the employers," he said.
OG vs. newcomers
Although the pandemic has accelerated the growth of Austin's tech industry, the industry was already established. In the latter half of the 20th century, the city attracted big tech originators like IBM because of its enticingly low labor cost and spawned homegrown giants like Dell—trends that continue today.
The arrival of Silicon Valley tech transplants in other growing tech cities, such as Miami, has led to tension with the so-called old guard. In Austin, such competition has forced companies to compete for workers, leading to more mobility.
"When I was in the job market, my god if you changed jobs often—and often meant once every three years—you were considered a traitor," said Angelou, who headed the Austin Chamber's economic development department from 1984 through 1995, helping to recruit companies such as IBM, Apple and Samsung to town. "Now people change jobs every nine months, it appears, and that is considered a plus."
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