The Union command chose this area for military encampments including Camp Barker near 13th and R streets and others in what is now the Shaw neighborhood proper.

The encampments were safe havens for freed slaves fleeing the South, and thus the area became a popular one for African Americans to settle.

[4] After the war, horse-drawn streetcar lines opened, running north from downtown Washington along 7th, 9th and 14th streets,[5] making the area an easily accessible place to live.

[7] In its cultural heyday – roughly consisting of the years between 1900 and the early 1960s[7] – the U Street Corridor was known as "Black Broadway", a phrase coined by singer Pearl Bailey.

[8] Performers who played the local clubs of the era included Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, and Jelly Roll Morton, among many others.

[9] During Prohibition, U Street was also home to many of the capital's 2,000-3,000 speakeasies, which some historians credit for helping integrate a city long divided between black and white.

[10] From 1911 to 1963, the west end of the U Street neighborhood was anchored by Griffith Stadium, home of the District's baseball team, the Washington Senators.

[12] While the area remained a cultural center for the African American community through the 1960s, the neighborhood began to decline following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on 4 April 1968.

[19] On January 4, 2021, the book "Black Broadway" by DC author and journalist Briana A. Thomas was published by The History Press[20] Thomas narrates U Street's rich and unique history, from the early triumph of emancipation to the days of civil rights pioneer Mary Church Terrell and music giant Duke Ellington, through the recent struggles of gentrification.

[25] NH = non-Hispanic, NHPI = does not include Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders Census tract 44 was bounded by 14th, S, and 7th streets and Florida Av.

[3] The neighborhood's landmark buildings are nearly all the works of prominent early 20th century African American architects, including:[29] Other landmarks include: U Street has long been a center of Washington's music scene, with the Lincoln Theatre (1922), Howard Theatre, Bohemian Caverns (1926), and other clubs like on 9th Street at Harrington's, and Chez Maurice Restaurants and historic jazz venues.

WMATA buses run along both U and 14th streets, and the DC Circulator Woodley Park-Adams Morgan-McPherson Square line stops at 14th and U.