Power Brokers
- brought grand new houses and important people to Midcity. By Blanche Kelso Bruce, the first African American to serve a full term in the U.S.Senate, lived on this block. Born enslaved in Virginia, Bruce ( - ) escaped from slavery,attended Oberlin College,and then became rich buying abandoned plantations in Mississippi after the Civil War. Elected to the U.S.Senate in ,Bruce worked to aid desti- tute African Americans and improve government treatment of Native Americans. Later he served as register of the U.S.Treasury and recorder of deeds for Washington, DC. Bruce and his wife, Josephine Willson Bruce ( - ), a founder of the National Association of Colored Women ( ),lived in the Second Empire French style house at M Street. Major John Wesley Powell ( - ) and his fami- ly moved to M Street (since demolished) in after he took over the U.S.Geological Survey.Powell had lost his right arm during a Civil War battle. Nonetheless he led the first official survey of the Grand Canyon in ,and promoted Native American rights. After ,small houses,commercial buildings, apartments,and immigrant churches developed here.The affluent gradually moved on,and their mansions were divided into apartments or rooming houses.So long as racially restrictive housing covenants limited opportunities,Shaw was a mixed- income,black neighborhood.Then in the s, with new “open housing” laws, many people of means left,bringing a temporary decline to the area. In the s many buildings on the east side of Ninth Street were cleared for urban renewal,but the resulting lot remained empty.In the Wash- ington Convention Center opened on the site.
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