The Forgotten History of U Street

"Before Shinola and luxury high-rises, before even the beginning of desegregation and the 1968 riots, the U Street corridor was known as Black Broadway. From the early 1900s into the 1950s, African-Americans—subject to Jim Crow laws in other parts of town—were free to own businesses here and built what was often described as a 'city within a city.'"

Image: The Republic Theatre, a movie house on U Street, before it was demolished to make room for Metro. Photograph by Robert McNeill, provided by Susan McNeill.