The Whitelaw Hotel: Excellence in Segregated Washington
The Whitelaw Hotel opened on 13th Street NW in 1919 as Washington’s first luxury hotel for Black patrons. Duke Ellington stayed there.
Howard Theatre
When Did the Howard Theatre Open?
The Apollo in New York, the Pearl in Philadelphia, the Uptown in Baltimore, and the Howard Theatre in Washington were the preeminent African-American venues for stars like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and the big bands of the 1930s to rock and roll and the Motown sound.
LeDroit Park: The Misspelled Name, the Fence War, and DC’s Premier Black Neighborhood
LeDroit Park began in 1873 as a fenced whites-only suburb dropped on Howard University’s doorstep. By 1888 the fence was on the ground. By 1920 Mary Church Terrell, Anna J. Cooper, and Paul Laurence Dunbar all kept addresses there.