It was a home of civil rights leader Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954), the first black woman to serve on an American school board, and a leading force in the desegregation of public accommodations in the nation's capital.

[2][3] Her home in the LeDroit Park section of Washington, DC was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975.

In the summer of 2008 a restoration was started primarily supported in by a grant from the National Park Service Save America's Treasures program.

Additional support came from Howard University, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the DC Office of Planning and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

A call to the National Park Service in November, 2019 confirmed that the home is privately owned and not open to the public.