Shaw

The Shaw neighborhood, whose focus is U Street, NW between 7th and 16th Streets, is the heart of an African American history and culture that was unique in the United States and rivals that of New York City's Harlem and Chicago's Bronzeville in significance. The neighborhood was named after
Civil War Union Officer, Robert Gould Shaw. Son of a prominent Boston abolitionist family, Robert Shaw was serving as a captain in the 2nd Massachusetts when he was tapped by Massachusetts Governor John Andrew for a special assignment. Shaw was to raise and command the first regiment of black troops organized in a Northern state.
Marion Jackson Pryde was born in 1911 and grew up in SHAW on the 1500 block of T Street, NW with her five brothers and sisters. Her father Samuel was a butler at the White House from the Taft to the Truman administration and her mother Eliza raised their six children.