The Fires of 1968
of the Rev.Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr ., on Thursday April , ,changed this neighborhood forever. When word of Dr.King’s murder spread that evening,Washingtonians gathered along busy th and U streets,NW; H Street,NE; and here on Seventh.At first distraught residents simply demanded that businesses close to honor the life of Dr.King,but soon angry individuals began smash- ing storefronts and taking merchandise.Fury over Dr.King’s death,combined with local black resent- ment of some white business owners who treated their patrons as second-class citizens,fueled the rage and destruction. Stores were firebombed and looted.Firefighters could not do their jobs because rioters cut their hoses. Police were outnumbered. On April , National Guardsmen and U.S.Army troops arrived to restore order. When the smoke cleared,the community discov- ered that people had died in fires.Many were elderly and disabled,living above the storefronts. Businesses,owned by blacks and whites alike,were ruined,never to reopen.The riots unfortunately succeeded where urban renewal planners had failed, demolishing many of the area’s oldest buildings. Shaw experienced years of boarded-up windows and vacant lots.By the 1980s,housing complexes stood where stores and taverns once did business. One building destroyed in the fires was a grand house built on this corner sometime before for fruit grower William F. Thyson. It became a hotel for farmers selling goods at the O Street Market,and from until ,a Salvation Army training center.
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