Lift Every Voice: Georgia Ave./Pleasant Plains Heritage Trail

[Draft Boilerplate — this copy appears on the back of every sign, along with credits and the map.]

How many dreams and memories reside in this short stretch of Georgia Avenue! South of Florida Avenue, where it is called Seventh Street, its heart once beat to jazz riffs and the eager steps of people dressed in their finest. Crossing Florida, Seventh becomes Georgia Avenue. Here commercial bakeries once perfumed the air, and hot Saturday afternoons meant Griffith Stadium: the shouts of baseball-mad crowds and the fragrance of roasted peanuts. But Georgia continues. It climbs toward Howard University, the historical heart of our country’s African American intellectual community. Further still, brick temples of learning give way to rowhouses and storefronts, and the steady beat of everyday life. Lift Every Voice: Georgia Ave./Pleasant Plains Heritage Trail pays homage to the musicians and impresarios, Jewish shop-keepers and African American barbers, intellectuals and activists, and all who lent a hand in building a thriving community along this stretch of Washington’s longest street, and one of its oldest.

Pleasant Plains once was the Holmead family’s huge estate, north of Columbia Road, from Rock Creek to Georgia Avenue. Today’s Pleasant Plains neighborhood sits on some of the old Holmead land. While most of this trail lies in Pleasant Plains, it actually starts in Shaw, then enters Pleasant Plains at Florida Avenue, goes through Park View at Harvard Street, and ends in Petworth.

Lift Every Voice: Georgia Ave./Pleasant Plains Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour of 19 signs is 1.9 miles long, offering about two hours of gentle, uphill exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail’s highlights is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses and institutions along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.

CREDITS TK

Sign 11968[7th & S at Shaw/Howard Metro]

Thursday evening, April 4, 1968. The news that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has been assassinated in Memphis makes its way like lightning through the city. Not far from this sign, at 14th and U Streets, where hundreds change buses or stop to shop, faces register first shock and then anger. People demand that businesses close out of respect for Dr. King. Then individuals begin breaking windows at 14th and U, looting some places, burning others. The violence spreads along U Street to this intersection, where, over the next three days, almost every white-owned business on Seventh between T Street and Florida Avenue is destroyed. 1

A United Planning Organization leader tells the Washington Post that day, “Black Americans feel more divided from white Americans than at any time in this century.”2

The riots were, in large part, a response to the inequality of housing, jobs, and schools available to African Americans and whites, and to the city’s neglect of black neighborhoods. “We’re burning the rats and roaches along with everything else,” proclaimed a youngster who had just set fire to a store here on Seventh Street.3 The rubble and crime left behind scarred this neighborhood for years, and those who used to frequent its restaurants and clubs stayed away. While officials and activists worked on rebuilding plans almost immediately — notably with a playground that opened in summer 1969 where Waxie Maxie’s had stood at on Seventh Street, to your [direction] — it would take many long years and the 1991 opening of this Metro station to make substantial progress.

1 Frank Love interview. Love has worked at Gregg’s Barber Shop, at 1909 7th Street, since 1961. 2 Washington Post, 4/4/68, A13 Ten Blocks from the White House, 223.

Images:

1-1Residents watch from behind Marty’s TV (TK Ninth Street) as fire engulfs the store on April 6, 1968.The Washington Post

1-2Women carry looted goods at Seventh and U Streets during the disturbances on April 5, 1968.Corbis (will need to pay for this; may need to disguise faces)

1-3, 1-4A looter vaults the counter at Manhattan Auto, Seventh and R, direction, before the building bursts into flames. A few days later, soldiers stand guard outside the burned-out showroom.The Washington Post

1-5The ruins of Dox Liquor, which once stood on [NE corner of this intersection; need to correct when sign is placed].Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

1-6A soldier guards smoldering wreckage at Seventh and Florida [possibly SW corner, site of parking lot today].Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

1-7, 1-8In February 1969, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development George Romney and President Nixon, direction, presented to Mayor Walter Washington, right, and other Washington leaders plans for a park to replace the still-standing ruins of Waxie Maxie’s, direction.[both]Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington Post

Sign 2Seventh and T[Seventh and T Streets, NW]

Back in the day, Seventh and T was the destination for black Washingtonians seeking a good time. Once the Howard Theatre opened to your right in 1910, restaurants, nightclubs, and businesses serving the diverse African American communities followed. As Marita Golden wrote in Long Distance Life, “Seventh Street, dressed in neon, scented with the hungry perfume of passion, hummed and whistled and scatted its way into the night.”

Seventh Street inspired. DC native Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington based his first composition, “Soda Fountain Rag,” on the scene at the nearby Poodle Dog Café, where he worked after school as a soda jerk.4 In the 1960s neighbor and under-aged fan Reggie Kelly “delighted in hanging outside the doors” of Mike’s New Breed at [direction] “listening to the house bands.”5

In 1938, at 1836 Seventh, Max Silverman started what became the Waxie Maxie’s chain of 28 record stores. The energetic Silverman presented jam sessions and live radio broadcasts in the storefront’s window, the “goldfish bowl.” Fans filled the sidewalk to see Sarah Vaughn or Buddy Rich.6 Silverman also promoted rising black artists. The teen-aged Ahmet Ertegun, son of Turkey’s ambassador to Washington, was a frequent customer. Inspired by the R&B of Seventh and T, Ertegun went on to found Atlantic Records in 1947, eventually recording DC’s Clovers, Ray Charles, the Rolling Stones, and many others.7

To your [direction] is the Southern Aid Society Building and Dunbar movie house, which opened in 1921. Architect Isaiah T. Hatton designed the building, and local architect Lewis Giles, Sr., who went on to a long career in Washington, served as his chief draftsman.

4 Mark Tucker, Ellington: The Early Years (1991), 33-345 Email to Sarah Shoenfeld from Reggie Kelly, 6/1/20096 Silverman’s store at 1836 7th St. was originally named Quality Appliance and Merchandise Company and opened in 1938. Stuart L. Goosman, Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of Rhythm & Blues (2005), pp.111-120, 214-220; Juan Williams, “14th and U,” Washington Post, 2/21/88; Paul Williams, p. 44 (don’t know what publication this was pulled from); Fitzpatrick and Goodwin, The Guide to Black Washington, 124.7 AAHT Database: Seventh and T Streets, NW

Images

2-1Grand opening of Quality Music (later named Waxie Maxie’s) at 1836 Seventh St., 1948.Afro-American Newspapers

2-2Seventh and T Sts. in 1939. Scurlock Studio Records, National Museum of American History

2-3The Off Beat Club, a Seventh and T destination.Collection of Henry Whitehead

2-4Greeting shoppers at the Quality Music grand opening were, from right, DJ Harold Jackson, Buddy Rich, Sarah Vaughan, and owner Max Silverman. Afro-American Newspapers

2-5Max Silverman welcomes Duke Ellington to Silverman’s Quality Music, around 1948.Photograph by Scurlock Studios, courtesy, The Washington Post

2-6Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records.The Washington Post

2-7Duke Ellington’s handwritten composition, “Soda Fountain Rag.”Library of Congress

2-8Draftsman, later architect, Lewis W. Giles, Sr., checks on construction of the Southern Aid Building.Collection of Lewis W. Giles, Jr.

Sign 3Howard TheatreSixth and T

The legendary Howard Theatre opened in 1910 as the nation’s first major theater built for African Americans.8 Audiences came for plays, variety shows, concerts, and movies.9 In the 1930s, under manager Shep Allen, the Howard joined the “Chitlin’ Circuit,” Afro-centric theaters featuring big bands, jazz, and R&B. Allen’s amateur night contests launched Billy Eckstine, Pearl Bailey, and Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots.

As the neighborhood went, so did the Howard. When segregation waned in the 1950s, its audiences moved on. Although the theater escaped damage in April 1968, people avoided the riot-scarred neighborhood. The Howard closed in 1970, reopened in 1974, and closed again. It awaited rehabilitation in 2010.10

For years, the stage doors of the Howard opened to Wiltberger Street near the Continental (Wonder Bread) Bakery, formerly Dorsch’s White Cross Bakery. The aroma of fresh bread and the promise of stardust led fans to linger outside the theater as performers passed by, bound for U Street night spots.1112

Continental Bakery had also taken over Corby’s, one of a group dating from 1900, when German immigrant and New England bakers gathered near Seventh Street.13 Nearby at 614 S Street was Jean Clore’s Guest House and after-hours club.14 “Well-known dignitaries from every walk of life” stayed at Clore’s “swanky homey hotel,” according to the black press of the 1930s. In 1982 the new Community Church moved into the former Guest House.15

During the segregation era (1880-1954), the Tuesday Evening Club of Social Workers ran a private youth center on Wiltberger.16 Nearby at 511 Florida Avenue, Dr. Ionia Whipper sheltered

8 National Register application, Section 8, p. 1 says the Howard is the oldest surviving theater in the country built expressly for African Americans during the era of segregation.9 Gardner and Thomas, “The Cultural Impact of the Howard Theatre on the Black Community, Journal of Negro History vol. 55, no. 4, Oct. 1970, 253-55.10The Howard was hosting amateur nights on Wed. and Fri. as early as Sept 1933 (Washington Tribune, 3/21/33).The Apollo opened in Jan. 1934. Eckstine obituary, Washington Post, 3/9/93.The Supremes performed in 1962. National Register application, Section 8, p. 811 Juan Williams, “14th and U,” Washington Post, 2/21/88. Could instead use this as a caption for a 1975 photo of Redd Foxx performing at the Howard Theatre (image listed in Sign 2).12 Spraggins says they would wait to see the performer come out during intermission. Remembering U Street: Interview with Alice Spraggins, http://www.pbs.org/ellingtonsdc/interviewsSpraggins.htm; Marc Fischer makes the following reference to clubs along Wiltberger St in “D.C. Proved a Cradle for Young Duke and His Gift,” Washington Post, 4/11/1999, B1: “Integration brought the demise of the clubs along the alley, Wiltberger Street, that abuts the Howard Theater.”13 White Cross Bakery’s owner, Peter Dorsch, was a Washington native. The owner of Corby Brothers Bakery was from New Hampshire. Continental Baking Co., makers of Wonder Bread, purchased White Cross in 1937, and continued baking at this facility until 1988. (Historic Preservation Review Board, Staff Report and Recommendation, White Cross Bakery [available online]; Paul Williams, White Cross Bakery, 641 S Street)14 Have not checked city directory to confirm location but Jim Dickerson says this is the building. It had become a flop house and unofficial homeless shelter and location for illegal drug use by the time he began cleaning up the building in the 1980s. 15 New York Amsterdam News, 1/13/45, p. 11. Old Rose Social Club is mentioned several times in Stuart Goosman’s Group Harmony as a popular after-hours venue for musicians.

unwed mothers in her home/clinic, and Dr. Simeon Carson’s private hospital operated at 1822 Fourth Street.17

Images

3-1Crowds gather at the Howard Theater, around 1940.Photograph by Robert H. McNeill [CK Susan McNeill, HSW]

3-2Interior of the newly opened, 1,500-seat Howard Theatre in 1910.(Washington Post, 6/23/85, p. H1 courtesy of the Smithsonian; need to locate.)

3-3Howard Theatre manager Shep Allen with Fats Waller at the Howard, 1939, as Waller presents a check to a Police Boys Club representative.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

3-4, 3-5, 3-6, 3-7Redd Foxx at the Howard Theatre, 1975. Others to come: will choose from: Basie, Calloway, Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Hampton, Bailey, Eckstine, LaVerne Baker, Gladys Knight and the Pips, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman.Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington Post

3-8A delivery truck for White Cross Bread, forerunner of Continental Bakery on Wiltberger St., 1926.Library of Congress

3-9Hotelier and society figure Jean Clore, 1938.Afro-American Newspapers

3-10, 3-11Actor Leigh Whipper, direction, performed at the Howard. His sister Dr. Ionia Whipper, direction, sheltered unwed mothers nearby. [both] Collection of Carole Ione Lewis

16 Jessie Carney Smith, Notable Black American Women (2003), 623. The Tuesday Evening Club of Social Workers shared space at a facility called the Saterlee House on Wiltberger Place. The club was established by pharmacist and entrepreneur Clara Smyth Taliaferro to provide recreational and social opportunities for neighborhood youth. Other founding members included Nannie Helen Burroughs and Imogene Wormley. The Tuesday Evening Club celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on May 1, 1960 at the headquarters of the National Assn. of Colored women, 1601 R St NW. 17 City directory for 1935 lists Simeon L. Carson as running Carson’s private hospital at 1822 4th St NW. He resided at 1913 3rd St NW with his wife Caroline; .http://www.ledroitparkdc.org/history.html; Program from Lynn French’s mother’s funeral says she was born at Dr. Carson’s hospital; John Kelly column on the private black Adams Hospital (1520 9th St NW) says a Dr. Carson practiced there (Washington Post, 5/24/09).

Sign 4Armed Resistance[Seventh Street and Florida Avenue, NW]

Shortly after midnight on July 22, 1919, James Scott, a black Army veteran, boarded a streetcar at this corner and nearly lost his life.18

A few days before, a white mob, including many recently returned veterans of World War I had rampaged through Southwest DC randomly attacking black people [men?] in retaliation for an alleged assault on a white woman by Negro “thugs,”19 as the Washington Times described them. Spurred by newspaper headlines, attackers targeted other black neighborhoods. But Scott didn’t know this. Boarding the streetcar here, he was stunned to hear white passengers yell, “Lynch him!” He was nearly killed as he attempted to flee; even the conductor shot at him.20

That summer race relations had been tense around the country. Black men who fought bravely overseas came home to a city even more segregated than the one they had left. President Woodrow Wilson’s administration had established separate facilities for black federal

employees. Unemployment was high. African Americans who had been respected as soldiers came home determined to fight U.S. racism. Whites were determined to keep them “in their place.”

As the mobs raged, some 2,000 black Washingtonians rallied here to defend their neighborhood.21 Veteran sharpshooters manned the Howard Theatre’s roof. Groups patrolled Seventh Street in military fashion.22 African American clergymen called on the president to protect the community against “the extreme lawlessness that has enacted itself against law-abiding colored citizens . . . by soldiers, sailors and marines in the uniform of the United States, assisted by civilian sympathizers.” By the time U.S. troops quelled the violence, seven people were dead and hundreds were injured. Yet African Americans took pride in the successful defense of their neighborhoods.23

Among those decrying the violence was William A. Taylor,24 founding pastor of the Florida Avenue Baptist Church, at 623 Florida Avenue, a half block to your right. The original 1913 church building was replaced by the current building in 1964.

18 David Krugler, “A Mob in Uniform: Soldiers and Civilians in Washington’s Red Summer, 1919” (unpublished), p. 16. Krugler notes that Scott boarded the streetcar shortly after midnight, so not in the heat of the day.19 Krugler, 820 Peter Perl, “Race Riot of 1919 Gave Glimpse of Future Struggles,” Washington Post, 3/1/99, A1; Green, Secret City, 190-96; Krugler, 16.21 Krugler, 12-13; Green, 19222 Washington Post, 3/1/99, A1; Interview with Alice Spraggins, Duke Ellington’s Washington (http://www.pbs.org/ellingtonsdc/interviewsSpraggins.htm); Krugler, 13 (doesn’t mention snipers)23 Krugler, 1; Perl wrote in the Post that in addition to those killed during the riots, “an estimated 30 more would die eventually from their wounds.” (WP, 3/1/99, A1).24 “Negro Pastors and Citizens Call on the President and Officials for Protection,” TWP, 7/22/1919, p. 2.

Images

4-1The Welcome Home parade for African American soldiers who served their nation in World War I, Pennsylvania Avenue, February 1919.National Archives[NARA, #398997, Krugler need to check at NARA for better version]

4-2The Washington Post ran inflammatory headlines including this one from July 22 for the duration of the rioting.The Washington Post[“2 Police Officers and 3 Negroes Killed: Scores Hurt as Races Battle in Streets of Washington, Defying Calvary, Infantry and Marines.”]

4-3The Washington Times published these photos of a “rioter” under arrest, and U.S. marines arriving to restore order.Library of Congress[image from microfilm, Krugler]

4-4Rev. William A. Taylor, center, founding pastor of Florida Avenue Baptist Church, and family at his 2119 13th St. home, 1930s. At upper left is grandson Billy Taylor, later the influential jazz musician and educator.Collection of Rudy Taylor

4-5, 4-6The Florida Avenue Baptist Church, direction, celebrated its mortgage burning in 1944.Historical Society of Washington, D.C.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

4-7After the riots ended, copies of this anonymous poem appeared throughout DC’s black neighborhoods.Newberry Library [need to secure permission: RG 165, Records of the War Department, General Staff, Military Intelligence Division, File 10218-350-7, box 1, reel 6, Theodore Kornweibel Research Papers, Special Collections, Newberry Library, Chicago, copy via Krugler.]

Sign 5Griffith Stadium[Southeast corner of Georgia and V Streets]

“I used to come home every night, get a quarter from my mother, run to Griffith Stadium, and sit in the bleachers,” Abe Pollin once said, “I would look out at these good seats and say, ‘someday maybe I will get a good seat.’ ”25 When Pollin’s MCI Center opened downtown in 1997, the accomplished real estate developer and arena builder got himself — and his city — thousands of good seats.

Griffith Stadium already was old when Pollin watched from the bleachers as a kid in the 1930s. Griffith occupied this city block until it was razed in1965. (Howard University Hospital opened on its site ten years later.)26 Home to the Negro Baseball League and white teams of the National and then American Leagues, Griffith was one of the few public places open to all, although during segregation the races sat separately.27 The only World Series victory for the American League Senators, led by star pitcher Walter Johnson, occurred here in 1924. The Negro League Homestead Grays, with batting superstars Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard, became Negro World Champions in 1944. Although they never played each other, the Grays consistently outplayed the Senators.[CK]28

Other events at Griffith ranged from student cadet competitions and Boy Scout jamborees to dramatic mass baptisms conducted by Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux, whose Church of God still stands just across Georgia Avenue. 2930 A charismatic activist, Michaux sheltered evicted families, organized affordable housing, broadcast the “Happy Am I” radio show, and offered bargain meals at the Happy News Café, 1727 Seventh Street.31

The large building at 2146 Georgia, once the Bond Bakery, was given to the People's Involvement Corporation in 1968 to provide community services in the wake of the riots that destroyed much of this neighborhood.32

25 Abe Pollin interview with Libby Richman, 8/3/2007 [check date], 5:30)26 AAHT-33-Griffith27 Brad Snyder has written that Griffith Stadium was not officially segregated, but that Clark Griffith set aside an area behind right field for black fans. According to Griffith’s son, this was done early on at the request of the black community. Black baseball player and sports reporter Sam Lacy, who grew up near the stadium during the 1920s, recalled that “they required you to sit in the right-field pavilion up against the fence almost, and [there was] no being able sit anywhere else in the stadium.” (Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators, 2003, 2); In a 2005 interview on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Alean Gardner, who is black, spoke of working as a nanny for the family of one of the Senators, but not being able to sit with the family during games. (“Memories of Washington’s Griffith Stadium,” All Things Considered /NPR, 4/14/05)28 This was also where 23,000 fans watched Joe Louis defend his heavyweight championship against Buddy Baer in 1941 and where the Negro National Opera Company performed. (Georgia Ave. tour, Chamber of Commerce29 Reggie Kelly says the Scout jamborees were attended by 20-30 thousand people. (GAPP Working Group interview, 39:30)30 AAHT Database: Church of God; Constance McLaughlin Green, The Secret City (1967), p. 239, says first mass baptism at Griffith was in 1938. See Webb, p. 111 for details.31 Lillian Ashcraft Webb, About my Father’s Business: The Life of Elder Michaux (1981), 52; Green, p. 222; AAHT Database: Church of God. Michaux also ran the Happy News/Industrial Bank at 11th & U. His wife Mary founded “Purity Clubs” with the motto, “Be a Peach Out of Reach.” (Georgia Ave. Tour, Chamber of Commerce)32“Howard Town Center to Finally Take Place of Bond Bread Building,” DCMud, 5/8/2008,

In 1946 impresario David Rosenberg hired prominent architect Albert Cassell to design and build a music hall at 815 V Street. Soon after, Duke Ellington lent his name to a nightclub there. By 1952 WUST Radio occupied the facility, hosting evangelical sermons along with jazz, reggae and go-go concerts. More than 40 years later the station moved to Virginia, and in 1996 the 9:30 Club relocated there from 930 F Street. 3334

Images

5-1This bird’s-eye view of Griffith Stadium shows Georgia Avenue at the upper edge of the ball park.National Archives[order 18AA-139-6]

5-2Homestead Grays power hitter Josh Gibson at bat.Library of Congress

5-3, 5-4Walter Johnson photographed in 1924, the year the Senators won it all. One year later, fans crowd the ticket line at Griffith as the Senators qualified for another World Series, which they lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates.[both] Library of Congress

5-6, 5-7, 5-8Elder Solomon Michaux’s Church of God, 1949, across from Griffith Stadium. At direction, the followers gather for baptism at Griffith Stadium. Historical Society of Washington, D.C.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

5-9, 5-10Elder Michaux welcomes diners in his Happy News Café, 1937.[both] Library of Congress

5-8DJ Cal Hackett, direction, on the air at WUST, Eighth and V Streets, 1983. The building became the 9:30 Club in 1996.[both]The Washington Post

http://dcmud.blogspot.com/2008/05/howard-town-center-to-finally-take.html33“A Big Hand for the New 9:30,” Washington Post, 1/5/1996 34 Building permit database (re: Rosenberg and Cassell). “Duke Ellington to Open “Duke Ellington’s” Dance Emporium, Washington Afro-American, 10/23/1948 p. 7, also stand-alone photo on same page: “Duke Opens Ellington’s Nitery.” “Billy Eckstine starts a 6-day stand at Duke Ellington’s,” 10/30/1948, p. 8, Washington Afro-American. “Mercer Ellington to Duke Ellington’s for 7 night stand” Washington Afro-American, 11/13/1948, p. 8.

Sign 6Medical Care for All500 block of Bryant St.

During the Civil War, thousands of formerly enslaved men, women, and children came to Washington in search of new lives. They needed work, education, shelter — and health care. In 1862 the U.S. government responded with Freedmen’s Hospital, located at 12th and R Streets, NW.

Freedmen’s moved near Fifth and W in 1869 and became the new Howard University’s teaching hospital. 35 At a time of strict segregation, Freedmen’s, like the university itself, was open to all. Freedmen’s became known for high-level care and education. In fact, after a 1910 U.S. Government review of American medical education in 1910, four of the six existing black medical schools closed, leaving only Howard and Nashville’s Meharry.36

Because black doctors were needed to care for African Americans, Howard Medical School focused on training physicians, but also became a top research institution.37 Pediatrician Roland Scott pioneered research on sickle-cell anemia, the genetic blood disorder that primarily affects African Americans.38 Washington native Dr. Charles R. Drew, who pioneered methods for blood donation during World War II, headed Freedmen’s Surgery Department from 1941 until his death in 1950.39 From 1908 until 1975, Freedmen’s operated in the building across the lawn from this sign, closing when the Howard University Hospital opened on Georgia Avenue.

Just east of here is the edge of what oldtimers called Howardtown, an area of wood-frame houses that grew from a settlement of formerly enslaved people during and after the Civil War (1861-1865).40 The Kelly Miller Dwellings replaced much of Howardtown in the early 1940s.41

Images

35 “After the Civil War, it became the teaching hospital of Howard University Medical School, established in 1868,while remaining under federal control.” (http://nlm.nih.gov/hmd/medtour/howard.html). “Since 1869 the hospitalhas been the teaching facility of Howard Medical School.” (Jacqueline Trescott, “Freedmen’s: New Home andName, Continuing Commitment,” The Washington Post, 3/2/1975)36 Andrew H. Beck, “The Flexner Report and the Standardization of American Medical Education,” (Journal of theAmerican Medical Association, 2004, 291: 2139-2140, http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/291/17/2139); “For Negroes More Schools of Medicine Are Sought,” Washington Post 3/13/1948, B2; Kelly Miller, “He Would Have Government Aid for Negro Medical Students,” letter to the editor, Washington Post, 1/7/1934, 8.37 Trescott (see footnote Error: Reference source not found)38 Adam Bernstein, “Roland B. Scott Dies; Sickle Cell Researcher,” The Washington Post, 12/12/2002, p. B06) Note that Scott is mentioned as a sickle cell researcher in Columbia Heights trail, sign 8.39 Trescott (see footnote Error: Reference source not found)40 For references to a contraband camp on or near current site of Howard U., see Elizabeth Brownstein, Lincoln’s Other White House (2005), 132-33 and Jennifer Fleischner, Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly (2003), 264. Black migrants often settled near Army hospitals and encampments (https://ncrcms.nps.gov/cwdw/historyculture/living-contrabandformer-slaves-in-the-capital-during-and-after-the-civil-war.htm). Harewood Hospital, on the 7th St Rd near the Old Soldiers’ Home, provided care for black Civil War soldiers (Washington History 8: 2, 65; http://www.paroot’s.com/pacw/hospitals/dchospitals.html [see website for published sources]; photos at Lib. of Congress show black patients. See also AAHT Database (Seventh and T Streets, NW).41 For biographical information on Kelly Miller, see City of Magnificent Intentions (1997), 325; Ida Jones at Moorland-Spingarn is writing a book about him.

6-1In a men’s ward at Freedmen’s Hospital, 1939Scurlock Studio records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

6-2A Freedmen’s Hospital ambulance,1890s(Unidentified source. Appears in Washington Post, 3/2/75, p. 137)

6-3, 6-4, 6-5Freedmen’s Hospital, 1941, direction. A 1930 class of nursing students stood for a Scurlock portrait on its front steps, direction. At direction an orderly pushes a convalescent.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American HistoryMoorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard UniversityNational Archives

6-6Dr. Charles R. Drew poses with the Red Cross’s first mobile blood collecting unit during World War II.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

6-7A portion of old Howardtown, direction. need credit info; probably NCHA

6-8, 6-9By 1941 federal government planners had wiped out slum housing for the substantial buildings in the center of this photo (Griffith Stadium is at the top). The brick houses at direction, completed on V Street between Fourth and Fifth in 1938, can be seen as the horseshoe-shaped development just below the stadium in the large picture.DC Housing AuthorityWashingtoniana Division, DC Public Library

6-10Dr. Roland Scott receives an incubator for the hospital’s premature babies, 1941.Afro American Newspapers

Sign 7Nightlife[2200 block of Georgia Ave. , corner of Bryant and Georgia]

At one time, everyone came to Murph’s.

Ed Murphy’s Supper Club, that is, which opened [across Bryant Street] in 1964.42 There a dress code meant that, after 6 pm, high-powered male patrons arrived in jackets and ties. As the Black Power movement grew, the rules relaxed to include dashikis or turtlenecks for the civil rights and DC statehood activists who gathered there.43 “His standard was to do everything first class,” remembered his son Keith.

In 1978 Murphy replaced the Supper Club with the ambitious Harambee House Hotel. “Harambee House came into my father’s spirit during the height of the 1968 riots,” recalled Keith Murphy. “I remember him discussing the hospitality industry as the likely future of the family business . . . . We had to do a nationwide search for upper level [hotel] managers because there were so few black people in the business.” With African décor and high-end amenities, the hotel attracted guests such as Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan, Stevie Wonder and Nancy Wilson. Singers often gave impromptu performances in the hotel dining room, considered the successor to the Supper Club. The hotel’s Kilimanjaro Room hosted press conferences by Muhammad Ali, Coretta Scott King, Carl Stokes, and John Conyers.44 After two years of punishing debts, however, Murphy sold the hotel to Howard University.

Beginning in the early 1900s, the blocks across Georgia Avenue were filled with industrial activities: junk yards, plumbing shops, and bakeries. During the streetcar era (1862-1962), youngsters were entertained watching “the pit,” the point in the route where southbound streetcars switched from overhead wires to the underground power source. Congress had banned the use of overhead wires south of Florida Avenue.45

42 Ed Murphy’s Supper Club opened in 1964. During the construction of Harambee House, it relocated to the other side of Georgia Avenue immediately north of the junkyard (diagonally across from original location). After Harambee House opened, the supper club operated inside the hotel (Keith Murphy interview).43 Trescott, ibid.; Keith Murphy interview.44 Jacqueline Trescott, “Long Pull From Hot Dogs to Harambee,” The Washington Post, 4/22/1978, p. B1; Keith Murphy interview. [In the wake of the 1968 riots, Murphy had successfully negotiated a $10 million investment by the federal government to open Harambee House.]45 Kenny Gilmore interview (says it was called “the pit”); Peter Shoenfeld interview; See also LeRoy O. King, 100 Years of Capital Traction: The Story of Streetcars in the Nation’s Capital (1972)

Images

7-2Ed Murphy’s Supper Club patrons, 1971 [would like better photo]Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington Post

7-3, 7-4place holders for Supper Club exterior, ads

7-5, 7-6Ed Murphy poses beside the Harambee House pool. At direction, the hotel shortly after it opened in 1978.[both]The Washington Post

7-7The updated Ed Murphy’s Supper Club, with African motifs.The Washington Post

7-8Stevie Wonder performing at Harambee House, 1979.Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington Post

7-9Streetcar worker detaches the overhead wire connection at the pit, 1947.Historical Society of Washington, D.C.[need to be sure this is what we see in the photo. Crockett 255]Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

Sign 8Cleaning up Cowtown [Georgia Ave. at Barry Place]

Before 1871, this area was an Irish and German immigrant neighborhood known as “Cowtown.”

That’s because cows, pigs, sheep, and goats roamed freely. At that time the city’s official boundary was today’s Florida Avenue. South of the avenue, animals had to be penned. North of it, they did not. A stream running along the east side of Sherman Avenue carried away the refuse from slaughterhouses and dairies.46 Even after the city’s anti-roaming laws were extended here, the slaughterhouses and name remained, and so did the stench. In hot summers, well before air conditioning, “the odor from them [was] frequently so strong at night as to compel the closing of windows,” one resident wrote the Washington Post.47

While the objectionable livestock eventually left, the low-income Cowtown became known as a tavern-ridden, dangerous neighborhood. By the 1940s, juvenile delinquency took center stage. Gangs with names such as Bonecrushers, Oilburners, and Fifth Street Tigers fought each other and committed vandalism and theft. Then Oliver Cowan, a local police officer, reached out to gang leaders and created the Junior Police and Citizen Corps, experimenting with giving youth “a chance to solve its own problems.”48 Unlike the segregated Boys’ Clubs and Boy Scouts, the Corps encouraged interracial friendships and included girls.49 “Kids caught breaking street lights were named Inspectors of Streets and Lights for their home block,” reported the Post, and “truants themselves were made Inspectors of Truants.” Juvenile arrests dropped by almost half, and by the late 1950s, 14,000 teens throughout the city had joined.50

Garfield Hospital sat just west of here from the 1880s to the 1950s. Its nursing school, DC’s first,opened in 1889, offering women one of the era’s few avenues to professional employment.51 Garfield Terrace, DC’s first public housing designed expressly for elderly residents, replaced the hospital in 1965, bringing innovative wheelchair-accessible foot paths, community kitchens, and an arts and crafts studio.52

Corby Brothers Bakery opened across the street from here [on the east side of Georgia Ave.] in 1911.53 Brothers Charles and William Colby grew very rich after inventing and patenting dough-mixers and loaf-molding machines that led to mass-distribution of bread.54 Eventually Continental Baking Co. bought out the Corbys, and the factory turned to making Wonder Bread.55

46 City laws on livestock were extended to the county in 1871, but “a number of meat-processing facilities had cropped up along the stream paralleling Sherman Avenue.” (Washington Seen?, 98—see Mara’s GAPP-7 file); Proctor’s Washington (1949), 77-8047 Washington Post, 7/21/187948 Washington Post: 1/8/44; 3/12/44, M1; 9/27/57, A1449 Constance Green, The Secret City, 289-9050 Washington Post, 9/27/57, A1451 Washington Post, 8/3/52, S1.52 Washington Post: 8/31/65, A1; 6/9/66, A33; 12/9/62, A2553 Philip Ogilvie, “Georgia Avenue: 5 Miles of Historic Evolution of Ethnic Diversity” (People’s Involvement Corporation, n.d.); Building permit for Corby Brothers Bakery was issued Nov. 16, 1911.54 Bethesda Magazine, Nov/Dec 2008, 235.55 Mark Walston, “Summer Retreat,” Bethesda Magazine Home, Nov.-Dec. 2008, 234-35.

Images

8-1Cowtown with Garfield Hospital, photographed from atop Howard University’s Main Building, 1910. Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University[See The Long Walk, p. 87.]

8-2Looking west on Barry Pl., the southern edge of Cowtown, around 1925.Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

8-3Officers of the Second Police Precinct kept order in boisterous Cowtown, 1878.Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

8-4Barry Place, 1941, shows industrial buildings squeezing out the old frame houses.National Capital Housing Authority

8-5, 8-6Police Sergeant Oliver Cowan, direction, founder of the Junior Police and Citizens Corps. At direction two corps members help raise funds for the group at a local bank, 1952.Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard UniversityThe Washington Post 8-7, 8-8Garfield Hospital, direction, treated white patients primarily but not exclusively.[both] Library of Congress56

8-9Mrs. Bertha Ward received this bill for a week’s stay at Garfield Hospital in YEAR??Collection of Bill Ulle [was this for having a baby? does he know any details?]

8-10Mayor Walter E. Washington dedicates Garfield Terrace, 1966.The Washington Post

8-11, 8-12The Wonder Bread bakery (formerly Corby’s), 1949. In 1925 Continental Baking purchased Wonder Bread from an Indianapolis baker and also DC’s Corby’s Bakery. Historical Society of Washington, D.C.The Washington Post

56 “Segregation in Washington” (1948), 53.

Sign 9Howard University[Georgia Ave. at Howard Pl.]

Welcome to the campus of historic Howard University.

Established after the Civil War to educate African Americans, especially clergymen, Howard has grown into one of the nation’s most prestigious universities. Among its famous graduates are Toni Morrison, Vernon Jordan, Jessye Norman, and Andrew Young. 57 58

During the segregation era (1880s-1950s), Howard offered employment to men and women with PhD degrees when white universities would not hire them. Among its luminaries were historian Carter G. Woodson, philosopher Alain Locke and sociologist E. Franklin Frazier. The university’s first black president, Rev. Mordecai W. Johnson, appointed in 1926, transformed Howard from a small, underfunded and unaccredited institution into a highly respected, PhD-granting university. 5960

In the early 1930s, Charles Hamilton Houston served as dean of Howard’s law school, where future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall received his training. Houston and Marshall led a team that shaped the battle to desegregate public schools, culminating in the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. On that team was future Howard president James M. Nabrit and historian John Hope Franklin.61

Atop the hill to your [right] is Howard Hall (1869), originally home to General Oliver Otis Howard, for whom the university is named. General Howard led the Freedmen’s Bureau, helped found the school, and served as an early president.62

57 [Howard was established by the federal government (although conceived by a religious philanthropic organization) in 1867 as an integrated liberal arts school, with its primary goal to provide higher education for African Americans.] Rayford Logan, Howard University: The First Hundred Years (2004), 14-25, 18-2258 http://www.howard.edu/explore/history.htm59 William M. Banks, Black Intellectuals (1998), 96; Raymond Wolters, “Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” in Wintz and Finkelman, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (2004), 56660 http://www.howard.edu/explore/history.htm61 The first significant school desegregation case fought by Houston, Marshall et al was Pearson v. Murray in 1936. See website produced by HU School of Law, http://brownat50.org/brownBios, for biographies of Houston, Marshall and Nabrit. See http://www.howard.edu/newsroom/releases/2010/100311HowardUniversitytoHostSymposiumhonoringtheLegacyofDr.JohnHopeFranklin.htm on John Hope Franklin’s involvement.62 AAHT 13-Howard Hall and AAHT Database

Images

9-1Illustrious Howard University faculty of 1950: James Nabrit, Dr. Charles Drew, Sterling Brown, E. Franklin Frazier, Rayford Logan, and Alain Locke.Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University

9-2Freedmen’s Bureau Commissioner Gen. Oliver Otis Howard.Howard University Archives (or credit to MSRC?)

9-3 Students in front of the Main Hall and Administration Building, Howard’s first, completed in 1868. The brick structure was torn down in 1935 to build Founders Library.Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University (or Schomburg?)

9-4Teachers in training, at Howard University, around 1900Library of Congress

9-5, 9-6Students study art, around 1915, direction, and engineering around 1925, direction.[both] Library of Congress

9-7Tennis champion and Dean of Women Lucy Diggs Slowe, around 1920.Howard University Archives (or MSRC-HU?)

9-8 President Mordecai Johnson often hosted dignitaries such as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, photographed at the opening of an exhibition at the Howard University Art Museum, 1941.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

9-9Charles H. Houston and Thurgood Marshall at Howard [Haven’t found a photo. Check HU Archives] NEED

Sign 10“The Day Black History Began”63 [Howard Place at Sixth Street]

Howard University has a long history of student activism for civil rights, peace, and academic reform.

Students of the 1930s and ’40s focused on off-campus injustice, especially DC businesses that refused to serve or hire African Americans and lynching’s nationwide. In the 1960s students organized sit-ins and registered voters. Finally in 1966 the Black Power movement arrived on campus when students elected the Afro-sporting activist Robin Gregory as Homecoming Queen.[2]

The following spring students protested the Vietnam War, charging that black soldiers fought “for a freedom they do not have in their own land.”[3] Students boycotted classes to pressure Howard to end required military (ROTC) training, which put many on the path to Vietnam. Howard capitulated, making ROTC an elective course. [4] In March 1968 students demanding a more Afro-centric university seized the Administration Building, to your direction. [5][6] Writing to President James M. Nabrit, himself a civil rights icon, students demanded that Howard reach out to the wider black community, produce “leaders who take pride in their true identity,” and become “the center of Afro-American thought.”[7] The negotiated settlement gave students more say in curricular issues. Then one month after the takeover, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had often spoke on campus, was assassinated. The stunned campus peacefully demonstrated its grief.

Many graduates carried the struggle with them. In the 1960s, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Toure) chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, criticized the Vietnam War, and built cultural and political connections with Africa.[9] Charlie Cobb co-founded DC’s first Afro-centric bookstore, the Drum and Spear (1968-1974).[8] Former theology student Douglas Moore led the Black United Front, connecting organizations working for civil rights and black empowerment, and helped found the DC Statehood Committee. [10][11]

63 Unnamed Howard University student protester (“Flag Furled in Howard Protest,” The Washington Post, 2/17/1968, A1) A[2] Gregory’s victory was announced in a ceremony at Cramton Auditorium in the fall of 1966. (Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer, Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s, 1990, 425-48)[3] This took place at Cramton Auditorium on March 21, 1967. (“Activism Emerges on Howard Campus,” The Washington Post, 3/23/1967, D1)[4] “Thousands Quit Classes in Howard U. Boycott,” The Washington Post, 5/11/1967, A1[5] The takeover of the A Building at Howard and subsequent closure of the university was one of the early protests of its kind. HU students were called on by students elsewhere for advice during the student protest movement. (“Howard University: An Inward Look at 1968,” 35th Annual on Washington, D.C. Historical Studies, Nov. 13-15, 2008) Activist student leaders included Ewart Brown, who became Bermuda’s Premier in 2006, and Tony Gittens, a longtime promoter of arts programs in the District. “Tony Gittens to Leave Arts Commission, Stay With Filmfest DC,” The Washington Post, 6/11/2008, C1. For Ewart Brown’s biography, see http://www.plp.bm/leadership/leader.[6] The disruption of President James M. Nabrit’s Charter Day activities took place at Cramton Auditorium on March 1. (“Howard Students Disrupt Ceremony,” The Washington Post, 3/2/1968, includes photo of students surrounding Nabrit on stage) The takeover of the A Building began on March 19. (“Howard Students Sit In to Protest Charges,” The Washington Post, 3/20/1968, A1)[7] “An Open Letter Sent to Howard President James M. Nabrit,” Carson, Hine et al, The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader (1991), 462-64[9] http://www.crmvet.org/vet/cobbc.htm[8] AAHT Database.  Hodari Ali says Drum & Spear was “in decline” by the time Pyramid opened in Dec. 1981.[10] Howard Gillette, Between Justice and Beauty (1995), 154[11] Gillette, Between Justice and Beauty (1995), 177; Washington Afro-American, 4/15/1969;http://www.dcvote.org/trellis/struggle/dcvotingrightshistoricaltimeline.cfm

Images

10-1Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking in Rankin Chapel, Dec. 1956.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

10-2Homecoming Queen Robin Gregory, described as a “natural beauty” in the 1968 Bison yearbook.Howard University Archives [need good scan]

10-3Howard students [silently? CK newspapers?] express their grief in front of Douglass Hall on April 5, 1968, the day after Dr. King was assassinated. Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington Post

10-4Student body president Ewart Brown explains the goals of the March 1968 sit-in that shut down the university. Brown went on to become premier of Bermuda.Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington Post

10-5, 10-6Student sit-in protesters fill the Administration Building hallway, 1968. At direction students post one of their demands.[both] Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington Post

10-7Student leader Anthony Gittens speaks to the press at the end of the March protest. From left are trustees Percy Julian, Jr., Richard Hale, Kenneth Clark, and Myles Page, and students Ewart Brown, Adrienne Mann, Gittens, Michael Harris, and Q.T. Jackson, Jr.The Washington Post

10-8After graduating Howard alumni Douglas Moore, direction, and Stokely Carmichael, direction, were among those known as leaders in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington PostThe Washington Post

Sign 11The Lake So Blue[Sixth and Fairmont Streets]

The body of water that inspired the line in Howard University’s alma mater, “far above the lake so blue stands old Howard firm and true.” is McMillan Reservoir, which opened in 1902 to supply water to the city.64 65 The reservoir and the Old Soldiers’ Home grounds nearby created a green oasis for both Howard students and their neighbors. On summer nights before World War II, neighborhood families escaped the heat of their rowhouses by sleeping on blankets near the cooling water.6667

In addition to seeing Howard as an intellectual standard setter, Howard’s neighbors have long been entertained by campus traditions, especially Howard Homecoming. In 1926 they joined the crowd of 16,000 to dedicate Howard’s new stadium overlooking the reservoir, and then cheered as the Bisons crushed Lincoln University’s Lions, 32-0. The annual Thanksgiving Day “Classic” game was the centerpiece of Classic Week’s concerts, receptions and dinner dances hosted by fraternities, and other activities. 68

Among the speakers at the 1926 stadium dedication was its designer, Architecture Professor Albert Cassell. The architect, who designed 16 campus buildings,69 oversaw Howard’s expansion in the 1930s under President Mordecai Johnson.

Lynn French, who grew up blocks from campus, remembered that her family attended Howard commencement in the 1950s, [CK] not only to cheer graduating friends and relatives, but also to hear the inspirational speeches. Over the years such luminaries as Lyndon B. Johnson, Colin Powell, and Oprah Winfrey have spoken at the ceremony.70

64 “Reared against the eastern sky, Proudly there on hilltop high, Far above the lake so blue, Stands old Howard firm and true.” Rayford Logan, Howard University: The First Hundred Years:1867-1967 (2004), 583. According to William H. Jones in 1927 (Recreation & Amusement Among Negroes in WDC), “Macmillan Park is now almost exclusively Negro.” (100)65 McMillan Reservoir was completed in 1902. (Scott, Pamela (2007), "Capital Engineers: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Development of Washington, D.C., 1790-2004." p. 175. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Publication No. EP 870-1-67.) Surrounding park designed by Olmsted? Do silos need to be explained?66 According to Darren Jones (interviewed by GAPP Working Group, 11/27/07), the reservoir was not fenced until around WWII, and his parents used to sleep there on hot nights (10:20). Joy Jones’article in The Washington Post District Weekly (10/31/1985) says her parents who met at HU before getting married in the 1950s used to stroll around the reservoir before it was fenced.67 Berlene Jackson & Roland Gardner interview (20:40). Consider re-organizing this paragraph around Jean Toomer’s lines from Cane: “I have a spot in Soldier’s Home to which I always go when I want the simple beauty of another’s soul. Robin’s spring about the lawn all day. They leave their footprints in the grass. I imagine that the grass at night smells sweet and fresh because of them. The ground is high. Washington lies below.”68 Rayford Logan, Howard University: The First Hundred Years:1867-1967 (2004) Raymond Schmidt, “Another Football World (Part II of III),” College Football Historical Society Newsletter 18:2 (Feb 2005), 18.(http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/CFHSN/CFHSNv18/CFHSNv18n2g.pdf) The HU stadium was the “largest Negro stadium in America,” with seating for 12,000 and space for 20,000. William H. Jones, Recreation and Amusement Among Negroes in Washington, D.C. (1927), 7669 Dreck Spurlock Wilson, African American Architects, pp 93-94.70 List of commencement speakers provided by Howard U. Archives.

Images

11-1Aerial view of Howard’s campus, around 1950.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

11-2Crowds await the new stadium’s first match, the 1926 Howard-Lincoln Thanksgiving Day football game.Scurlock [Need to check at SI again; also available from Schomburg, but is half-tone.]

11-3Architect Albert Cassell poses with son Irvin in front of 707 Fairmont St., the home he designed for his family.Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University

11- 4, 11-5, 11-6, 11-7Cassell’s campus designs: Douglass Hall, direction, MORE TK.The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. (General Photograph Collection, CHS 12357)

11-8Among the university activities that drew the community were the Howard College Dramatic Club (later Howard Players) production of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1911, direction, and TK.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

11-9Students greet Sen. John F. Kennedy, speaking to the American Council on Human Rights during the 1960 presidential campaign.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

11-10Labor leader A. Phillip Randolph spoke at Citizenship Week, 1960.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Sign 12 [needs more cutting]Enriched[700 block of Euclid St., close to Georgia Ave.]

During the Civil War, thousands of once-enslaved people crowded into DC, desperate for shelter, work, and protection. Most vulnerable were orphans and children separated from their families. In 1863 a group of influential African American women opened a shelter for them in Georgetown: the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children.

The National Home was the city’s only foster facility for black children. It taught children basic writing and math. Because orphans had to contribute to their own support, the home hired them out to work for families as far away as New England. Eventually the home moved to a building across Euclid Street, and then to this site after the city announced plans to build Banneker Junior High School. The home’s successor donated this building to the Emergence Community Arts Collective, an innovative center for neighborhood education and empowerment that opened its doors in 2006. 7172

Miner Normal School once occupied the building directly across Georgia Avenue from here. 73 Founded in 1851 to train African American teachers, Miner eventually merged with the white Wilson Normal School to become DC Teachers College. In 1977 DC Teachers joined the new University of the District of Columbia. 74

Across Euclid Street is Banneker High School, established as DC’s model academic high school in 1981, replacing Banneker Junior High.75 The school borders Banneker Recreation Center, long a mecca for neighborhood youth.76 Until desegregation of the recreation programs in the 1950s, Banneker’s pool was among the few open to black swimmers.77 The all-black American Tennis Association held competitions at Banneker, and in 1955 future tennis star Arthur Ashe won a 12-and-under championship here.78

With so many schools here, the neighborhood teemed with teachers, remembered Dolores Tucker, who grew up at 1000 Euclid. Her mother Gladys Williams had termporarily left teaching to raise her family. Their house “was Grand Central Station. After they built Banneker [in 1939], the teachers used to stop on their way to school to have coffee with my mother.”

71 Home moved to Euclid St. in 1930-32. Banneker JHS opened in Nov. 1939. (“Emerging Women…Unveiling the History of 733 Euclid St. NW;” AAHT-17-Merriweather; “Senator Talks at Banneker Dedication,” The Washington Post, 2/13/1940, 19)72 “Emerging Women…Unveiling the History of 733 Euclid St. NW”73 AAHT Database74 The Washington Post cites location of DC Teachers College but I can’t find the reference.75 “Opening on a Wing and a Prayer,” The Washington Post (8/26/1981), C176 “New Banneker Center Offers Final Summer Fun,” Washington Informer, Jul 26-Aug 1, 2007, 1-2; “Banneker Gets Facelift,” Afro-American Red Star (Wash DC), 1/18/1992, A1.77 Berlene Jackson interview. 19:30; William H. Jones, in Recreation and Amusement Among Negroes in WDC (1927) refers to the Howard pool being the only pool for Negroes at the time of his writing. A Negro beach operated at the Tidal Basin until whites complained it was too close to their beach, so both were shut down; Francis Pool opened in 1928, the first DC public pool built for African Americans. Whites-only Parkview pool came under fire as the neighborhood went from predominantly white to mostly black; DC officials closed the pool in the summer of 1940. The all-white Parkview playground was desegregated (i.e. became a black playground). (Wiltse, Contested Waters, 145-46) Although Wiltse says the Parkview pool never reopened, a 1969 Washington Post photo shows the pool full of African American children (sign 19).78 During the 1950s, Ashe regularly competed at Banneker’s courts in tournaments held by the all-black American Tennis Association. (Washington Post, 7/30/73, D1 and 7/27/78, DC2)

Just around the corner on Georgia Avenue was once home to the Howard Delicatessen. With its front window full of fresh fruit, the Howard was owned by Italian immigrant Frank Guerra. In 1988 Kenny Gilmore, who grew up on the same block, took over the business. Gilmore was the godson of Frank Guerra’s daughter, and had worked in the store since he was a young child.7980

79 Kenny Gilmore interview (9:30, 38:00?, 1:00)80 Kenny Gilmore mentions Kampus Korner (9:30). For spelling and location, see “Morton Street’s Changed, but It’s Still Home.” The Washington Post (10/31/1985, DC3) This article notes that it was replaced by Blimpie’s.

Images [Does Sylvia have something from the 19th century with the orphans?]

12-2Elizabeth Keckley, founder of the Contraband Relief Organization and the National Home.[need image] Portrait of Elizabeth Keckley, 1860s (Credited to Lincoln Museum, Fort Wayne, IN or Ostendorf Collection) (See Brownstein, Lincoln’s Other White House, p. 129 or Fleichner, Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly)

12-3, 12-4Children of the Merriweather Home (successor to the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children) set the table, direction, and dress for a Brownie meeting, 1963.[both] The Washington Post

12-5Miner Teachers College (formerly Normal School) athletic banquet, 1937Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

12-6Miner Teachers College football team, 1935.Photograph by Joseph Owen Curtis, Collection of DC Public Library

12-7 Local children attended Miner’s “practice” elementary school, around 1900.Library of Congress

12-8Students at Banneker Junior High School, 1942Library of Congress

12-9A spirited dance class at Banneker Recreation Center’s Community Club, 1971.The Washington Post

12-10Arthur Ashe conducts a tennis clinic at Banneker Recreation Center, 1969.Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington Post

12-11Dolores Williams leads mother Gladys and husband Mervyn [or is it her brother Theodore?] out of their home at 1000 Euclid on her wedding day. Collection of Dolores Tucker

12-12Howard Delicatessen proprietor Kenny Gilmore, with broom, coped with road construction on Georgia Ave. in 1991.The Washington Post

Sign 13Along the “Nile Valley” [Georgia Ave. at Girard Street]

With its Afro-centric shops and connections to Howard University, this stretch of Georgia Avenue has been called the “Nile Valley.” Blue Nile bookstore opened first at 2826 Georgia in 1980.81 Hodari Ali, a former editor of Howard’s student newspaper, followed with Pyramid Books at 2849 Georgia, where businessman Kenny Gilmore remembered finding “the whole 360 degrees of black life.” Filmmaker and Howard Professor Haile Gerima opened Sankofa café and bookstore at 2714 Georgia in 1999.

Patrons from all over flocked to this block well before the bookstores arrived to visit the Cardozo Sisters hair salon. Founded in Elizabeth Cardozo Barker’s Howard Manor apartment in 1929, the salon [at direction; GA just below Girard, east side] was considered very refined. Uniformed staff, Barker recalled, “did not speak loudly, gossip, or call customers by their first names.”82 For more than 40 years, the sisters worked with all types and textures of hair, serving customers of every ethnicity. They educated hairdressers, and Barker, a member of the city’s Board of Cosmetology, fought successfully to desegregate the profession.

Ernest Myers began cutting hair at the Eagle Barber Shop shortly after it opened at 2800 Georgia in 1947 and eventually bought the business. In order to attract mothers and their young sons, Myers recalled, he played only Christian radio music before 2 pm. Howard University presidents numbered among the high-powered clients. Some first came under Myers’s scissors during their student days.83

Deas Delicatessen opened at 2901 Georgia, just up the hill [CK] in 1961, offering Howard students a three-meal-a-day plan alternative to dorm food,84 and serving such celebrities as comedian/activist Dick Gregory and the Urban League’s Vernon Jordan.

SIDE TRIP [sidebar]:DC native Edward “Duke” Ellington lived with his wife, Edna, and their son Mercer at 2728 Sherman Avenue — one block west of here — from about 1919 to 1921.

81 Need date of opening for Blue Nile. (Preceded Pyramid according to Hodari Ali.)82 Founder Elizabeth Barker (formerly Cardozo) said the salon was among the top three in the country in gross receipts around 1971, according to a booklet produced by the Dept of Commerce on hairdressing. In 1976, she estimated there were 24 customers who had been coming since the salon opened in her apartment in 1928. Interview with Elizabeth Barker, Dec. 8, 1976, Black Women Oral History Project, Vol. 2 (1991). Another famous hairdresser on Georgia Ave. was Grace V. Savage, owner of La Savage Beauty Clinic at 2228 Georgia who took classes at Madame C.J. Walker’s on U St and became one of DC’s most successful beauticians. Her trademark colors were black and pink; she founded La Savage cosmetics in the 1950s; and in every HU homecoming parade, she drove a pink Cadillac with a sign on the side, “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody.” Her jet-black upswept hairdo with a prominent silver streak also became known throughout Washington (Georgia Ave. Tour, Chamber of Commerce, 12-13).83 “Giving Him the Snip,” The Washington Post, 10/21/1990, SM11; “An American Patriot Makes Peace With the War,” The Washington Post, 2/12/1991, B3; Conversation with Ernest Myers, 10/22/09 (Sarah Shoenfeld, not recorded)84 Deas was open until at least 1996.

Need Side Trip photo

Images

13-2Pyramid Books owner Hodari Ali discusses Kwanzaa, 1986.The Washington Post

13-3This “pharaoh” marked Pyramid Books’ storefront.

13-4The Cardozo siblings at home, around [year]. From left, Names, Warrick, TKcredit TKlow res scan from Judy Cardozo via Lynn French; need high res, all info

13-5Need to get photo in salon ORThe three Cardozo sisters, NAMES TK from Judy Cardozo?, at the reservation desk, 1941.Afro-American Archives

13-6 Need a photo of Ernest Myers at Eagle Barber Shop or Eagle Barber Shop. Sarah S to try.]

13-7Edward Deas talks with Allison Mitchell at Deas’ Delicatessen in 1992 as he considered retiring. Washington Post

Sign 14Urban Oasis[700 block of Hobart Place]

This quiet block was built by developer Harry Wardman, whose rowhouses, hotels, and apartments are among the city’s most elegant and well-built. When these houses went on the market in 1912, buyers snapped them up.85 Among them were an electrician, a policeman, an iron worker, and a watchman.86

All were working class, and all were white. Wardman followed the then-common practice of writing a covenant, or promise, into the deed prohibiting the sale or rental to “any Negro or colored person under a penalty of Two Thousand dollars.”87 Not everyone went along with the covenants, though, and by 1930 all of the houses were occupied by African Americans. In part this happened because of the 1919 race riot that occurred near here in 1919. In part it was a natural expansion of the residential sections drawn to historically black U Street and Howard University.88

But racial change was never permanent. In 1956, when Lily Jones and her family moved to Hobart Place, she found white neighbors. Then “White Flight” took over, with affluent whites pulled to new suburban housing, and, often, pushed by fears of people who were racially different. “When we moved in,” recalled Jones, “they moved out.”

In her time on Hobart Place, Jones saw Hispanic families come and go, while whites have returned. The block parties of long ago have resumed, and the “sturdy, well-built” house where she and husband George raised eight children “has stood up through all these years,” she said.89

This block’s best-kept secret may be the tiny “pocket parks” to your direction. Responding to the Hobart Place Block Club,90 Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson, added Hobart Place to her campaign to beautify Washington. Local philanthropists Carmen and David Lloyd Kreeger donated the funding. The parks opened in 1968, as the Johnson Administration was ending.91

85 Of the 112 Wardman houses place on the market May 11, 1912 (Hobart Pl, Columbia Rd, Harvard St), nine werepurchased by May 19. Washington Post, 5/12/12, F4 and 5/19/12, p. 1886 City directory, 191487 Original deeds for 743 Hobart Pl and for another Wardman house on Sherman Ave erected at the same time include this restriction. Wendy Plotkin notes that during the Great Depression, “white owners were less willing to restrict the market for sale of their real estate and to divert scarce financial resources to litigation.” (Plotkin, “Restrictive Deed Covenants” in Encyclopedia of American Urban History, 2006)88 1920 and 1930 census89 Interview, Lily Jones with Mara Cherkasky at 762 Hobart Place, March 11, 2010.90 Email from Darren Jones to Sarah Shoenfeld, 5/19/09: The Hobart Place Block Club and its president, ArthurBrooks of 778 Hobart Place, led the effort for the parks. The block club’s involvement was confirmed by a phoneconversation with Reby Franklin of 779 Hobart Place, 5/28/09.91 Washington Post, 7/15/07, C1; Washington Star, 10/3/1968.

Images

[Pull quote box takes place of a photo:]This house is a mansion . . .This house holds the key to the future and the majesty of the past . . .This house has seen its share of ups and downs, but year after year it stands stronger than before.This house is a fortress. This house is love. This house is family.— Maya Alston, granddaughter of Lily Jones

14-2 , 14-3Neighborhood Club President Eva Rumph, Carmen Kreeger, Lady Bird Johnson, David Lloyd Kreeger, and Mayor Walter E. Washington dedicated the Hobart Place community Parks in 1968. At direction, neighborhood children (and Mrs. Johnson’s Secret Service agents), enjoy the new equipment.Washington Star collection, DC Public Library, © Washington Post.

14-4Lily Jones, right, and neighbor Ruth Lawson enjoy a summer afternoon on Hobart Place, 1979. Collection of Lily Jones

14-5From left, Lawrence, Darren, (front), Valorie and William (later Rashad) four of the eight Jones children who grew up at 762 Hobart Place, dressed for Easter 1968.Collection of Lily Jones

NEED MORE PICTURES, perhaps a block party? Even if it’s recent? Kids in the pocket parks? Check with Darren and the neighbors.

Sign 15“Treat Me Refined”Sherman Ave. between Columbia Rd. and Irving St.

The house at 3017 Sherman Avenue once was a boarding house for Howard University students. In 1923 a determined and talented young woman named Zora, of Eatonville, Florida, lived here while earning an Associate’s Degree at Howard.92 In a short time she would win international acclaim as the novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston.

Hungry for culture, Hurston devoured Howard’s opportunities. She performed in campus theater, played violin, joined the Zeta Phi Beta sorority, and co-founded the student newspaper, which she named The Hill Top. She published her first short story in The Stylus, the university’s literary magazine. She attended renowned poet Georgia Douglas Johnson’s literary salon, meeting the best-known black writers of the time.93 And to support herself, Hurston waited tables at the exclusive all-white Cosmos Club, worked as a manicurist, and cleaned houses.94 New York’s black literary leaders discovered Hurston when she published another story in the Urban League’s Opportunity in 1924.95 New York beckoned, and Hurston left for Harlem as the New Negro Renaissance, a period of intense cultural productivity and racial uplift, was coming together. She went on to collect folklore, returning often to DC for the National Folk Festival and other gatherings.96

Hurston’s Sherman Avenue rowhouse was built in a style created around 1900 to allow two low-income families to live in separate apartments with private bathrooms. One of the two entrances leads to a downstairs unit and the other to a second-floor flat.97 Sherman Avenue, developed in 1880s as part of Columbia Heights, once was lined with tall shade trees like many DC streets. Then in 1956 Federal Highway Act funding paid to cut down the trees and widen the lanes so cars could get downtown faster.98

As you turn right on Kenyon Street ahead, you will pass Chavez-Bruce Preparatory Public Charter School. Built as the Blanche K. Bruce Elementary School, it opened for “colored” students in 1898.99

92 1923 DC city directory, 88093 Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road, 138 [HU paper now called The Hilltop—all one word]; Valerie Boyd, Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston (2003); Jon Woodson, “Black Literary Washington, D.C.—Community and Resistance (2009, unpublished). Timeline for “Jumping at the Sun” (PBS American Masters series) mentions violin-playing during the period 1918-1924.94 Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road, 130; 1923 DC city directory, 880.95 She had her 1st story published in Opportunity in 1924 and won 2nd place in its literary contest the nextyear. Opportunity editor Charles S. Johnson encouraged Hurston to move to NY and join the nascent “New NegroRenaissance.” (Caplan, 40-41)96Valerie Boyd, Wrapped in Rainbows. Also Library of Congress American Memory website timeline; “A Brief History of the National Folk Festival,” National Council for the Traditional Arts, www.ncta.net.97 Elizabeth Hannold, “’Comfort and Respectability:’ Washington’s Philanthropic Housing Movement,” Washington History 4:2, 20-3998 Post, 3/26/1957, B1; 10/5/1956, 20. (Neither cites Sherman; just general on money for “widening and paving.”)99 The Washington Post, 6/18/1899, 11; The Bruce school yard was one of the few play areas available to black children during the summer acc. to Wm. Jones, Recreation and Amusement Among Negroes (1927)

Images[PULL QUOTE takes the place of a photo]“What do you think I was doing in Washington all that time if not getting cultured. . . . Treat me refined.”— Zora Neale Hurston to Langston Hughes, 1931100

15-2Zora Neale Hurston, while a student at Howard University, 1920[Can we confirm where the photo was taken? I don’t recognize the fountain as being at HU.]Zora Neale Hurston Collection, Univ. of Florida [will need to research and order]

15-3, 15-4 This issue of The Stylus, direction, contained Hurston’s first published story. Its first page is at direction.[both] Alain Locke Collection, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University

15-1 [need new caption if we can get photo and more info]Zora standing with two Howard U. girlfriendsZora Neale Hurston Collection, Univ. of Florida

15-5At the 1938 National Folk Festival in Washington, this group performed southern folk songs collected by Hurston.101 Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

15-6The tree-shaded house at 2824 Sherman Avenue before the road was widened.Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

15-7 The Bruce School, around 1945, direction. Students direction transferred to the Monroe school in 1973.Sumner School Museum and Archives

100 Carla Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters (2003), p. 205. In 1953, Hurston wrote the following to longtime friend Herbert Sheen: “It is interesting to see how far we have both come since we did our dreaming together in Washington, D.C. We struggled so hard to make our big dreams come true, didn’t we? The world has gotten some benefits from us, though we had as well [sic] time too. We lived!” (Kaplan, p. 695) There may be other good Hurston quotes on DC. (SS)101 Hurston brought her Sun to Sun Singers to the National Folk Festival to perform southern work songs. Washington Post, 4/25/38. Valerie Boyd, Wrapped in Rainbows, 315, 366

Sign 16From Beer Garden to Park View[Georgia Ave. and Kenyon St.]

Back when this area was open fields, German Americans created an amusement park to your [direction]. Washingtonians flocked to Schuetzen (marksmanship) Park for target shooting, concerts, dancing in the ballroom or under the pavilion, bowling on the green, and picnics. The beer garden amid hilltop breezes was especially attractive on hot summer nights. The Schuetzen Verein (society) owned and operated the 12.5-acre park, which stretched roughly from here south to Hobart Street.102

The fun began to subside in 1891, however, after Congress banned the sale of alcoholic beverages within a mile of the Old Soldiers’ Home. The society sold the park as saloons closed and property values in the area soared. New owners tried unsuccessfully to sell the land to the U.S. Government for a hospital or temporary soldiers home. Eventually they divided the tract into lots. When rowhouses arose, they became part of the Park View neighborhood, named for the nearby wooded Soldiers’ Home grounds.

For TK years, the Modern School of Music at 3109 Georgia offered top-notch instruction to children and adults. Founded in the 1930s by Arthur E. Smith, whose training included DC’s Armstrong High School, Howard University, and the Julliard School, the Modern School’s graduates included jazz saxophonist Charlie Hampton, who led the Howard Theatre’s house band in the 1960s. 103104 Across the street, until TK, Morgan’s Seafood served up fresh steamed crabs and spiced shrimp to neighborhood regulars and city politicians. Former DC Councilmember Charlene Drew Jarvis called Morris Morgan “the ombudsman of Georgia Avenue” for 20 years of fostering community connections.105

102 Washington Post, July 4, 1879 and June 1879; Proctor’s Washington (1949) 251 (HSW)103 Chicago Defender, 9/26/36; Washington Post, 7/23/84104 Washington Post, 12/16/84, K3105 Washington Post, 11/17/83, A1

Images

[PULL QUOTE takes the place of one photo:]

“Innumerable colored Chinese lanterns . . . shedding that dim uncertain light which is the delight of lovers and the poetry of beerdrinking.”— Washington Post, June 1879

16-2 , 16-3A group picnic at Schuetzen Park, where German American and other organizations enjoyed the sprawling pleasure grounds. The card at direction invited a Major Vanburg to the third annual Schuetzen Fest, a German American festival.[both] Historical Society of Washington, D.C.[need to check German Orphan Society records, other German-related groups at HSW for more photos, especially of sports and dancing and shooting]

16-4Just completed Park View rowhouses line the south side of Princeton Place, around 1913.Library of Congress

16-5Park View Elementary School students hosted Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy at a school assembly in 1963.Star Collection, DC Public Library; © Washington Post

16-6Summer fun in the new Parkview Playground swimming pool, 1969.The Washington Post

16-7, 16-8, 16-9Students, direction, at the Modern School of Music, direction, led for more than 50 years by Arthur E. Smith.[all three] Afro-American Newspapers

16-10Morris Morgan of Morgan’s Seafood racks up for a game of pool.Afro-American Newspapers

Sign 17The Next Wave[Georgia Ave. and Morton St.]

Caribbean immigrants discovered this stretch of Georgia Avenue in the 1940s, bringing island culture along with jerk chicken, curry, and coco bread. Many, like Eric Williams, who led Trinidad and Tobago to independence in 1962, came to study or teach at Howard University. Others came seeking better jobs.106 The 2000 Census for DC counted TK from the Caribbean.

English-speaking immigrants from the former British West Indies found the transition to DC life easier than those who had to learn a new language. They also held tightly to their traditions, organizing an annual festival here on Georgia Avenue as well as opening bakeries, groceries, and book and music stores. Brown’s Bakery opened in 1980 at the corner of Georgia and Lamont, serving patties and spice buns.107 Across the street, Mike and Rita’s opened in 198X, specializing in roti (curried meat and potatoes wrapped in a flaky dough). At that time, there were almost three dozen West Indian establishments along this stretch.108 DC’s edition of Carnival, the last weekend of every June, features spectacular costumes and calypso music.

Behind you [CK] is the Park-Morton public housing complex. It was built in the early 1960s,109 shortly after thousands of African American homes in Southwest DC were demolished to make way for modern apartment and office buildings. Although the Park-Morton won an award for architectural excellence, DC’s Housing Authority came under fire for spending more to provide residents with balconies.110 In 2010 the Park-Morton was slated for demolition in favor of a larger, mixed-income development with a new park and community center.111

[Looking for details to substantiate whether there was a significant Jewish community here. There were Jewish shopkeepers. Jacob B. Levin edited the Washington Jewish Voice newspaper out of an office a block south of here at number 3017.112 To be inserted later.]

Side Trip [Sidebar]: Dr. Charles R. Drew, who developed a method for storing blood plasma on a mass scale during World War II and was head of surgery at Freedmen’s Hospital, lived with his family one block west of here at 3324 Sherman Avenue, Apartment 1.[three photos:]17-2, 17-3, 17-4Dr. Drew with daughters Charlene, age three, direction, and Bebe, age 4, inside their apartment building, direction. Dr. Drew’s wife Lenore holds a happy Charlene, direction.[all] Collection of Bebe Drew Price113

106 Urban Odyssey (1996), 251-52107 Washington Post, 1/3/82; Brown’s was also voted the best Jamaican bakery in the DC area in 2007. http://www.brownscaribbakery.com/about.htm108 Washington Post, 1/3/82109 Washington Post, 3/23/1960110 Washington Post, 2/25/66, C1; Washington Post, 2/27/66111 Washington Post, 3/5/09, B2112 Ogilvie and Hassan, D.C. Chamber of Commerce’s Georgia Avenue Tour; interview with Nelson Deckelbaum (Sarah Shoenfeld, 8/17/09); email from Wendy Turman (Jewish Historical Soc.)113 AAHT-31-Drew

Images

17-1Need good photo of Caribbean Festival dancers for back. MC to search.

17-5, 17-6,

Neighborhood children respond to the Caribbean Festival parade, including dancers of the Trinidad and Tobago Association.[all] The Washington Post

17-7Ricky Hillocks owned the West Indian Record Mart on Georgia and Columbia Rd. in 1981.The Washington Post

17-8Caribbean comedians filled Howard’s Cramton Auditorium in 1988.Collection of Von Martin

17-9Sam Rosen’s Lamont 5 and 10 became Brown’s Caribbean Bakery in 1980.Collection of Larry Rosen

17-10 17-11 17-12The DC Housing Authority removed the houses at left in the picture of Morton St., (1960) direction, in order to build the Park-Morton Apartments (1961). At direction are a section of the finished development, just east of the pictures direction.[all] DC Housing Authority

Sign 18 [will shorten]The Modern Shopper[Georgia Ave. and Park Rd.]

Braving a blizzard, eager customers lined up in February 1936 for their first experience with a modern, self-service, cash-only supermarket. Nehemiah Cohen and Samuel Lehrman’s Giant Food was the chain’s first. Although the Memphis-born Piggly Wiggly chain pioneered the supermarket concept, it took Giant to capture DC consumers.

Across the city, shoppers had relied on specialty stores, one for bread, one for meat, one for milk, where shopkeepers filled orders. In addition small general groceries were found on many corners. Most were owned by Jewish grocers, members of the city-wide buying cooperative, District Grocery Stores (DGS for short). In the 1930s, the 3300 block of Georgia had three Jewish groceries, with at least 15 along the route of this trail.114 Although DGS offered customers credit between paydays, delivered their groceries, Giant’s efficiency and lower prices won them over. 115

The police substation at 750 Park Road (to your left) opened in 1901 as the headquarters for the new 10th Precinct: 15 square miles of “suburbs” stretching north from Florida Avenue to the District line, and between Benning Road and Rock Creek.116 Until the late 1960s, most of its officers were white, many Irish. Racial tension developed when this area, as a result of white flight, became a black neighborhood almost overnight in the late 1950s. The six-foot-six Jack

Edwards, known affectionately as Big Jack, was one of the first black officers to police the area

south of Park Road.117

Albert H. Beers, who designed more than 2,000 buildings in DC, including five just south of here at 3324-3332 Georgia Avenue, lived at 757 Park Road at the time of his death in 1911.118

On your way to Sign 19, notice the Fishermen of Men Church, formerly the York movie theater. The York was built by theater mogul Harry Crandall, who also built the The Tivoli (14th Street and Park Road) and Lincoln (U Street), movie palaces.119

114 “Almost every corner, every two or three blocks, had a DGS.” (Jerry Rosenthal); Jewish Historical Society of Washington database for “Half a Day on Sunday” online exhibit.115 Interview with Berlene Jackson (GAPP Working Group, 1:15); Interview with Nelson Deckelbaum (Sarah Shoenfeld)116 “Policing the Suburbs,” TWP, July 30, 1900, p. 10.117 Larry Bell interview118 Historic Building Permits Database119 Crandall also built The Colony at Georgia and Farragut and The Kennedy a bit further north and west of here at 3rd and Kennedy NW. (Headley)

Images

18-1Names TK Deckelbaum pose inside Deckelbaum’s Meat Market at 786 Harvard St., around 1940.Collection of Nathan Deckelbaum

18-2The grandly named first Giant Food Shopping Center, 1936.Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington

18-3Celia and Nathan Weinreb in their 438 V St. store, next to the old Griffith Stadium.Gift of Ruth Compart, Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington

18-4Joseph and Lena Shankman inside their Economy Meat Market, 2827 Georgia.Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington

18-5Officers of the 10th Precinct, around 1930.Collection of Hiram Brewton

18-6Officer Jack EdwardsNeed to find through police department resources

18-7Albert BeersNeed to find through AIA

18-10, 18-11Crandall’s York Theatre inside, direction, and from Georgia Ave. at night, around 1919.Library of Congress

Sign 19Mr. Lincoln’s Ride[Georgia Ave.-Petworth Metro Station]

It’s the summer of 1862. Early morning, but already hot and dusty. You’re standing at this spot, when you see a tall man on horseback. It’s President Abraham Lincoln. You’re pleased to see him, but not surprised. After all, he comes by here often.

Georgia Avenue, then the Seventh Street Turnpike, ran between downtown Washington and Rock Creek Church Road, which led to Lincoln’s summer cottage on the grounds of the Old Soldiers’ Home (now the Armed Forces Retirement Home). Though Lincoln was required to travel with military escorts, sometimes he sneaked out alone before dawn or after dark to journey in solitude. The Civil War was a year old. Lincoln occasionally stopped to visit with formerly enslaved men and women at settlements and Army camps along his route. Harewood Hospital was one of these, described by poet Walt Whitman as “out in the woods, pleasant and recluse.”120

In March 1865, John Wilkes Booth heard the president would attend a play at Campbell Hospital, near where this Heritage Trail begins. Booth plotted to kidnap Lincoln on his way back to the cottage.121 Instead, a month later, Booth assassinated Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre.

[Need to check all with Lincoln Cottage.]

Engine Company 24, DC’s first fully motorized fire company, was across Georgia from 1911 until 1994, when it moved to make way for the Petworth Metro Station. Its façade survives across Georgia Avenue from here, incorporated into the Metro cooling plant across the intersection on New Hampshire Avenue. The Green line opened here in 1999.

120 Peter Coviello, ed., Walt Whitman’s Memoranda During the War (2004), 99. “Every Sunday of these months visited Harewood Hospital out in the woods, pleasant and recluse, some two and a half or three miles north of the Capitol. The situation is healthy, with broken ground, grassy slopes and patches of oak woods, the trees large and fine. It was one of the most extensive of the Hospitals–but…”121 Booth and his co-conspirators met somewhere near 7th and Florida. (Michael W. Kauffman, American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies, 2004, 185; William Hanchett, “The Ambush on the Seventh Street Road,” The Surratt Society News, Oct. 1981, 153)

Images[Pull Quote takes place of one photo]“He rode in unguarded, and often alone.”122

— Noah Brooks, journalist, 1864.

19-1The Orchid Dry Cleaner building was razed for the Metro station on this corner.The Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

19-2This map shows the route President Lincoln took from the White House to his cottage.Lincoln Cottage

19-3, 19-4The tents of Harewood Hospital, direction, on the Seventh St. Turnpike near the Soldier’s Home. At direction, wounded soldiers posed in front of a hospital building.\[both] Library of Congress

19-5President Lincoln visited this contraband camp on [address] .National Archives

19-6Lincoln’s Cottage at the time of his visits.Library of Congress

19-7, 19-8Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, considered attacking Lincoln at Campbell Hospital, direction, near what is now the intersection of Florida and Georgia Aves.[both] Library of Congress

19-9The façade of Engine Company 24 now can be seen across from this sign on Georgia Ave. Library of Congress

122 Noah Brooks (journalist and friend of the Lincoln family), 21 July 1864, in Michael Burlingame, Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 205.