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Worthy Ambition
LeDroit Park/Bloomingdale Heritage Trail
2 T Street Elites
The Roster of LeDroit Park's accomplished African Americans is long. Consider these prominent Washingtonians who lived on T Street.
Walter E. Washington and his wife, Bennetta Bullock Washington, lived with her family at 408 T Street. Mrs. Washington's father was the Reverend George Bullock. President Lyndon Johnson appointed Walter Washington DC mayor-commissioner in 1967. Eight years later, with the return of limited Home Rule to DC, he took office as the city's first elected mayor since 1871. Bennetta Washington received her Ph.D. in 1939 and was a nationally recognized expert on the impact of poverty on education and employment.
Robert H. and Mary Church Terrell moved to their second LeDroit Park home, half of a double house ate at 326 T Street, in 1899. Robert Terrell, a Harvard graduate, became DC's first black Municipal Court judge in 1902. Mary Terrell, the National Association of Colored Women's first president, was instrumental in desegregating Washington. The 1953 Supreme Court decision to uphold 80-year-old laws guaranteeing equal access to restaurants, stores, and other public facilities resulted from a lawsuit initiated by Mary Terrell and fellow activists.
Colonel West Alexander Hamilton, a commander of the all-black 366th Infantry in World War II, lived at 413 T Street. He later fought for school desegregation during two decades of service on DC's Board of Education.
Equally distinguished was Dr. Ernest Everett Just, a pioneering cell biologist at Howard University who lived at 412 T Street with his family. Dr. Just's Howard University colleague Dr. Charles Sumner Syphax, a mathematics professor and descendant of Martha Washington's nephew, lived with his family at 315, then 414, and later at 313 T Street. |