[2] Shaw and the U Street Corridor have historically have been the city's hub for African-American social, cultural, and economic life.

[4] The neighborhood thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the pre-Harlem, national center of U.S. black intellectual and cultural life.

[5] Furthermore, in 1925, Professor Alain LeRoy Locke advanced the idea of "The New Negro"[6] while Langston Hughes descended from LeDroit Park to hear the "sad songs" of 7th Street.

[7] Carter G. Woodson, an important historian of African American culture and society, lived in the neighborhood during the prime of his career and life in early- to mid-1900s.

Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, riots erupted in many D.C. neighborhoods, including Shaw, Columbia Heights, and the H Street, NE corridor.

[7] The 1968 Washington, D.C., riots marked the beginning of a decline in population and development that condemned much of the inner city to a generation of economic decay.

MICCO used federal grant money to employ African American architects, engineers, and urban planners in inner-city Washington, D.C.[10] Shaw is a residential neighborhood dominated by 19th-century Victorian row houses.

[11] Gentrification beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s generated new discussions between the inhabitants of the Shaw neighborhood and the Dupont Circle Conservancy organization.

As a response to this proposal, the 14th and U Street Coalition, which called itself the representative of black interests and historical identity in neighboring Shaw, began protesting that the Dupont Circle preservationists were trying to occupy their neighborhood and its history.

[17] The most generally used definition of Shaw, without Logan Circle and the U Street Corridor, is bounded by:[18] Shaw consists of gridded streets lined mainly with small Victorian row houses, but also north of the convention center by urban-renewal-era low-rise apartment complexes and the late 2010s mixed-use development City Market at O.

Tucked away into the alleys here are former light industrial buildings that now constitute the Blagden Alley-Naylor Court Historic District, home to restaurants, cafés and other small businesses.

[30] The lack of investment and limited power in the area created a barrier in the neighborhood's development and urbanization during the early 1800s.

[31] Although Shaw continues to be populated by many African-Americans, the price of housing experienced steady growth in the 2010s and early 2020s, which could lead to further displacement among the black community and a phenomenon known as root shock.