The Baháʼís in Cincinnati date back at least to 1910. A joint meeting of Baháʼí communities of Ohio met in Cincinnati in June 1930, and was a time of monthly public meetings in Cincinnati. In 1931 a Cincinnatian member of the Urban League took part in one of the Race Amity conferences of the religion over in New York. There was a Baháʼí Spiritual Assembly, the local administrative institution of nine adults, in Cincinnati in 1933. Austin carried literature of the religion around for about two years and attended meetings noting especially prominent African-American and lawyer Louis G. Gregory, and Dorothy Baker over in Lima, who "helped me overcome my bitterness" and joined the Baháʼí Faith in 1934, the same year she also presented the NAACP protest of school allocations, was admitted to plead cases before the Ohio Supreme Court, and was named to the Board of Trustees of HBCU Wilberforce University. Austin led a private study class on the religion in 1935, and in 1936 served on an all-Cincinnati YWCA committee of whites and blacks that met at the African-American serving West End YWCA and a functional site for girls in the Y in Walnut Hills.