Remerciez-le!

Remerciez @Admin pour avoir partagé cet document gratuitement, de la manière la plus simple, en partageant sur les réseaux sociaux.

GREATER U STREET HERITAGE TRAIL City Within a City For the ﬁrst half of the twe

GREATER U STREET HERITAGE TRAIL City Within a City For the ﬁrst half of the twentieth century, this U Street neighborhood inspired and sustained the rich social, civic, and cultural life of Washington’s African American community. Follow this trail to the places that tell the story of this exceptional community in the heart of the nation’s capital. Visitors to Washington, D.C. ﬂock to the National Mall, where grand monuments symbolize the nation’s highest ideals. This walking tour invites you to deepen your experience of the nation’s capital by discovering the places where people in the Shaw/U Street neighborhood — for half a century the heart of African American business and culture in Washington — worked to make those ideals a reality. Adjacent to the famed Howard University, this neighborhood was home to Duke Ellington, leading African American art- ists and professionals, and a thriving black community of churches, schools, and social and civic organizations. Here people of color responded with strength to the injus- tices of segregation, engaging in some of the nation’s ﬁrst civil rights protests while simultaneously building a vibrant urban center of their own —“a city within a city.” Welcome. Duke Ellington mural G. Byron Peck City Within a City Greater U Street Heritage Trail Paul K. Williams, Project Director Kathryn S. Smith, Lead Historian A project of Cultural Tourism DC in collaboration with the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., and the Downtown DC Business Improvement District. Funded by the DC Department of Housing and Community Development, District Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation, and Washington Convention and Sports Authority. Additional funding for the fifth printing provided by Whole Foods Market. © 2001 by The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. and the DC Heritage Tourism Coalition (now Cultural Tourism DC). Fifth printing, 2010. All rights reserved. Distributed by Cultural Tourism DC 1250 H Street, NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 www.CulturalTourismDC.org Design by side view/Hannah Smotrich As you walk the trail, please be aware that you are traveling through an urban environment. Keep your safety and personal security in mind, just as you would while visiting an unfamiliar place in any city. After the war, public streetcars began to run north from downtown into this area, opening it for residential development. Craftsmen and builders, government employees, professionals and working people, black and white, moved into the houses you see today. Almost all of these ﬁne brick homes were built between 1870 and 1900, making this neighborhood an outdoor museum of late Victorian rowhouse architec- ture. Smaller houses lined hidden alleys in the larger blocks, where people of few means could afford to live. The neighborhood attracted some of the leading African American intellectuals of the day, as well as families of all economic levels, some descended from Washington’s large pre-Civil War free black community. As racial segregation tight- ened in the late 19th century, the neighborhood became the heart of black Washington. Former residents remember that part of the strength of this community was the mixture of people from all walks of life who lived side-by-side — labor- ers, craftsmen, government employees, and pro- fessors — who, despite their differences, created a viable community that supported its people and inspired its youth. By 1920, more than 300 black businesses clus- tered in this vicinity, and U Street became the community’s boulevard. Three ﬁrst-run movie theaters, nightclubs and ballrooms, poolhalls and stores operated alongside the ofﬁces of black doctors, dentists, and lawyers. In the 1930s and 1940s, the likes of Cab Calloway, Pearl Bailey, Sarah Vaughn, Jelly Roll Morton, and native son Duke Ellington played on and around U Street, and hung out at after-hours clubs in a scene so full of magic that it was dubbed Washington’s Robert H. McNeill until 1920, when New York’s Harlem over- took it, Washington, D.C. could claim the larg- est urban African American population in the United States. The U Street area provided the heartbeat. It inspired and nurtured the elegance and the musical genius of Duke Ellington. Leaders in science, law, education, and the arts — such as Thurgood Marshall, Dr. Charles Drew, Langston Hughes, and the opera star Madame Evanti — walked these streets and lifted the aspirations of its families. This neighborhood lies within the area laid out by Pierre L’Enfant for the federal city in 1791. By the time of the Civil War 70 years later, howev- er, it was still open land dotted with a few frame buildings. Two Civil War camps and a hospital brought the ﬁrst major activity to the area. In 1867, Howard University began to rise nearby, the ﬁrst such southern institution to welcome African Americans. Introduction The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. Founders Hall, Howard University Libaray of Congress Thurgood Marshall Pool players on U Street, 1940s The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. Rowhouses on 13th Street NW Paul K. Williams Louis Armstrong at the Lincoln Colonnade. St. Augustine Church Archives St. Augustine Catholic Church choir, 1920s. Black Broadway.” Evenings and weekends, U Street was the place to be, especially Easter Sunday and Halloween, when it became a parade ground. On Sundays the community gathered in scores of churches, where generations had worshipped in congregations that dated back to the Civil War. Many of the buildings that provided the setting for the grand balls, civil rights gatherings, religious services, and business affairs of this community were ﬁnanced, designed and built by and for African Americans, an extraordinary phenom- enon in the early 20th century. Four major black architects — W. Sidney Pittman, Isaiah T. Hatton, John A. Lankford, and Charles I. Cassell — worked in this area. Their achievements can be seen in the structures that housed the nation’s ﬁrst African American YMCA; the city’s oldest black bank; the earliest ﬁrst-class African American hotel in Washington; a historic Masonic lodge; and a business, civic, and social center built by the Order of True Reformers. All have been restored to their original grandeur, as has the Lincoln Theatre, touted by the Washington Bee upon its opening in 1923 as “perhaps the ﬁnest and larg- est theater for Colored people in the world.” “ The neighborhood began to change in the 1950s when the end of legal segregation opened new housing opportunities for African Americans and many chose to leave for newer, less crowded places. Then the 1968 riots following the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., which began at 14th and U, marked the neighborhood as unsafe. Today the neighborhood is experiencing a renaissance, sparked by the construction of the Reeves Municipal Center in 1986, connections to the city’s Metrorail system in 1991, a revival of local nightclubs and restaurants, and renewed interest in the neighborhood’s historic build- ings. The African American Civil War Memorial at Tenth and U is drawing visitors from around the nation. Restored as a lively center of com- munity life, the neighborhood is now shared by people of all races who honor its legacy. Kathryn S. Smith Executive Director Cultural Tourism DC washington’s historic black broad- way was the heart of African American life in Washington, D.C. from about 1900 to the 1950s. Duke Ellington, its most famous native son, grew up, was inspired, trained, and played his ﬁrst music here. He is but one example of the leaders in law, medicine, the military, science, and the arts who were shaped by a community that valued education and supported achievement against great odds in a segregated society. At the eastern edge of the neighborhood stands Howard University, its guiding star throughout many generations. The Lincoln Theatre at 1215 U Street, now restored to its 1922 grandeur, was one of three ﬁrst-run movie theaters clustered on U Street. The Lincoln Colonnade behind the theater, since demolished, was a popular setting for balls, parties and per- formances. All the great entertainers played clubs on or near this boulevard — Cab Calloway, Pearl Bailey, Sarah Vaughn, Louis Armstrong, Billy Eckstine, and Jelly Roll Morton, to name a few. Black-owned entertainment venues and professional businesses including the ofﬁces of black lawyers, doctors, and dentists, and the headquarters of black social institutions, all clustered along U Street. Many of them occupied buildings that were ﬁnanced and built by and for African Americans, an unusu- al phenomenon at the time. At night and on weekends, U Street was a parade ground — a place to meet friends and share what many describe as a close, small-town atmosphere. And at its core was an elegance epitomized by Duke Ellington himself. The old-timers of the neighborhood said that U Street was so grand that to come here “you had to wear a tie.” You Had to Wear a Tie 13th and u streets nw 1 The Lincoln Theatre anchors a busy U Street in the 1940s. Photographer Robert H. McNeill was looking east on U Street at 13th, toward the lights of since- demolished Griffth Stadium. Robert H. McNeill The True Reformer Building 12th and u streets nw 2 A social group called The uploads/Geographie/ ust-guide-english 1 .pdf