Justice vs. Injustice EUCLID and 13TH STREETS NW
Thes e elegant 1 3th S tree t ho us es were constructed at a time when racial separation was legal and widely accepted. In 1 9 01 the deeds for many houses on the west side of 1 3th Street included covenants banning “any negro or colored persons.” By the 1 93 0 s, 1 3th Street divided black from white. Then, in 1 94 1 , African American educator Mary Hundley and her husband Frederick bought 25 3 0 1 3th Street, on the white side, despite its restrictive covenant. (Hundley was the granddaughter of William Syphax, founder of the nation’s—and Washington’s—first public high school for African Americans.) White neighbors successfully sued the Hundleys for breaking the covenant, but a higher court overturned the ruling. In 1 948 the U.S. Supreme Court cited the Hundley case as precedent when it decreed that racially restrictive covenants were unenforceable. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan once lived at 1 4th and Euclid Streets. In 1 896 Harlan was the only justice to dissent when the Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional. That ruling helped justify the covenants that Hundley helped neutralize. Economic discrimination spurred further activism in the 1 97 0 s. Protesters rallied for low-income tenants who faced eviction by speculators seeking to convert their homes into condominiums. Across Euclid Street, at number 12 36, once was the Afro-American Institute for Historic Preservation and Community Development. Established in 1 97 0 by Robert and Vincent DeForest, the institute helped obtain National Historic Landmark status for more than 6 0 African American historic sites across the nation.
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator