Architect T.Franklin Schneider’s Sixth St.square of rowhouses,1950.
Selling fish,O Street Market,1980
opened up new areas of town for fashionable but
racially restricted development,white people of means moved north and west of Shaw.This area was not restricted and offered the mostly black-owned business district on U Street plus a concentration of excellent “colored”schools.In fact M Street High School,founded in as the nation’s first high school for African Americans,operated at M Street (now Perry School).African Americans migrated from the South just to attend Shaw’s schools.By Shaw was majori- ty African American. Religious expression flourished in Shaw,as you can see in its many historically black churches.Immigrant whites (German,Irish,Italian,Greek,Eastern European Jewish) also built sanctuaries here.Within walking distance of the old Northern Liberty Market site (Mount Vernon Square) were three major synagogues and more smaller ones. When the Nation of Islam came to Washington, it opened a mosque on Ninth Street.And tiny storefront churches and traveling preachers found ready congrega- tions within the alleys or on street corners.
J.Edgar Hoover, Central High School’s most noted graduate (1913),and the debate team.
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