Harvey Calvin Austin III was born August 6, 1946, in Shreveport, Louisiana and grew up in Allendale.  He began his Christian journey at an early age where he acknowledged Christ and was baptized at William Memorial C.M.E. Temple.  He later united with Mt. Canaan Baptist Church and with St. Rest Baptist Church.  

In 1959, at the age of eleven, Austin preached his first sermon and began selling the Shreveport Sun in the downtown area.  Through this experience he began to read about the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP ) and its goal to combat discrimination and racism in the United States.  He made the decision to begin attending NAACP youth chapter meetings and officially joined their ranks shortly thereafter.

On Sunday, September 16, 1963, one of the city's most notable racially motivated attacks took place at the Little Union Baptist Church.  The NAACP prompted a rally in response to six African American youth who were killed, including four young girls, in the bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.  The late Reverend Dr. Harry Blake organized both the rally and a subsequent march that would have taken place on Milam Street, but he was brutally attacked inside the church.  That attack was conducted by members of the Shreveport Police Department who rode into the sanctuary on horses.  

Pastor H. Calvin Austin, III attended that meeting at the age of sixteen.  The next day he was determined to inform his classmates at Booker T. Washington High School (BTW) about the vicious encounter.  He and fellow student, Frank Daniels, who served as the President of the NAACP youth chapter, discussed the situation at a gathering with numerous other students during their lunch period.  Initially the gathering was supposed to end with a prayer but a bulk of the students decided that a more public demonstration was a more appropriate action to take.

BTW students decided to march in protest toward Little Union Baptist Church located a block and a half away.  The students, led by H. Calvin Austin, never made it to the church.  They were assaulted with tear gas and other forms of blunt violence by police personnel.  Most of the approximate two hundred students participating in the protest were forcibly harassed into returning to the campus. 

The police took Austin and seventeen other students to jail.  He has publicly stated on numerous occasions that he was singled out by police officers as the leader and was placed in jail for forty-five days and treated harshly.  When he tried to return to school after his detainment, he learned that he had been expelled from BTW and no other schools in the region would enroll him due to a negative stigma that followed him.  His parents decided to send him to New Orleans where he attended L.B. Landry High School.  Upon graduation he was offered a full scholarship to the University of Colorado at Boulder.  Austin earned a bachelor's degree in Sociology and later obtained a master's degree in Sociology from the University of Denver. 

The Caddo Parish School Board apologized to Pastor H. Calvin Austin, III in 2004 for banning him from the system and awarded him his diploma.  On Monday, February 28, 2022, at a public forum on the BTW campus, official apologies were extended to former and current students on behalf of the Shreveport City Council.  Current Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith participated in the event and verbally apologized for the role that the department played in thwarting the student led protest march.  Pastor H. Calvin Austin, III attended and spoke at the event, encouraging students to recognize the historic legacy that is tied to the BTW campus and the galvanizing impact that the student led protest played in Shreveport's overall civil rights posture.  In March 2022, the 10900 block of Ellerbe Road was dedicated to H. Calvin Austin, III.  Former Shreveport Mayor, Adrian Perkins, issued a public apology for the humiliation and arrest.  In 2023, H. Calvin Austin finished the walk he started, and it was uninterrupted.  

H. Calvin Austin, III was a giant among men and a pillar in the Allendale Community.  His impact and influence in the City of Shreveport will be felt and seen for years to come and he will be missed by many.