District of Columbia

Washington, D.C.’s U Street Corridor, also known as the Shaw neighborhood, was home to one of the largest established urban African American communities of the twentieth century. Located near Howard University, the nation’s most prominent historically Black university, the U Street neighborhood was a historic hub for Black entrepreneurship, innovation, academia, and arts.

The oblong site that would become Dupont Circle first appeared on the 1791 plan for the District of Columbia by Pierre Charles L'Enfant and Andrew Ellicott. The baroque-influenced plan was characterized by an orthogonal street grid overlaid with broad avenues diagonally radiating out of squares and circles set aside for commemoration or open space. Although unnamed at that time, Dupont Circle was one of the largest.

Morton Street Church served as a religious and social anchor for the African American neighborhood of Columbia Heights. Among the neighborhood’s most well-known residents was Duke Ellington, who lived here in the early 1920s. Built for the Trinity African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church, the structure was William Sidney Pittman’s first commission as a professional architect and the last of his three remaining religious designs in the city.

Garfield Elementary Public School is located in the Anacostia neighborhood at the intersection of Alabama Avenue and Jasper Street in Southeast Washington, D.C. It was meant to replace the whites-only Hamilton Road School, built in 1887, thus indicating an ongoing demographic shift in the neighborhood. Designed by William Sidney Pittman and constructed in 1910, the project was Pittman's second school in the area; the other being the Fairmount Heights School in Maryland.

The John Philip Sousa Junior High School is located in the Anacostia neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C., east of the Anacostia River. It serves as a symbol of the federal government's desegregation of public schools and the beginning of the modern civil rights movement. 

Located in the suburban Spring Valley neighborhood near Tenleytown, the Spring Valley Shopping Center is a historic commercial block, made up of six connected buildings. It was developed by the firm W.C. and A.N. Miller between 1939 and 1950 to serve the adjoining wealthy neighborhoods of Wesley Heights and Spring Valley. The development is unique because the entryway curves off of Massachusetts Avenue and the site was managed by a single real estate firm.

The African American Civil War Memorial is located in the Shaw neighborhood, at the intersection of U Street and Vermont Avenue in Northwest Washington, D.C, across the street from the African American Civil War Museum. It is the first memorial honoring the 209,145 soldiers of the U.S. Colored Troops who fought in the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln formed African American regiments in 1862 to gather more troops and also generate support for abolition efforts. Enslaved, formerly enslaved, and free African Americans volunteered to join the regiments. 

Opened in 2014, the Chuck Brown Memorial was commissioned by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities in partnership with the Executive Office of the Mayor to celebrate the go-go legend, referred to as the "Godfather of Go-Go." The project is an important effort to highlight Washington's Black history, which has been compromised in recent years with the advent of fast-paced gentrification and the pushing out of Black residents by white newcomers. 

Located in the Shaw neighborhood, near T Street and 12th Street NW, the Anthony Bowen Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is the earliest surviving YMCA structure built by and for African Americans. In addition to serving as an important Christian anchor for the community and promoting the growth and development of Washington's Black youth, the YMCA presented an exceptionally impressive building.