Black History Permeates Nation's Capital

About 60 percent of Washington, D.C.'s 572,000 residents are black, and their history in the area predates the 1791 creation of the federal district by Congress. That makes the nation's capital rich in black heritage, from the Colonial era to the antebellum and Civil War eras, to contemporary urban life.

"There was always a sizable free black population in the District of Columbia," said James Horton, the Benjamin Banneker professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University.

Yet for decades after the capital was established, slave markets flourished in the area that is today the National Mall, particularly along what is now Independence Avenue.

Slaves and free blacks helped build the White House and U.S. Capitol as both laborers and craftsmen.

Although President George Washington personally took part in placing the south cornerstone for the future capital at a spot known as Jones Point, 8 miles north of his Mount Vernon estate, it was the surveyor Banneker who performed the calculations needed to position 39 other stones along a route measuring 10 miles on each side. Banneker was a well-known black inventor, mathematician and astronomer who had been born free.

Slave Houses, Escape Plots

"Washington was dedicated to having high-quality craftsmen and workmanship," said Stephanie Brown, a Mount Vernon spokeswoman. Many of the 316 slaves living at his estate at the time of his death were trained as coopers, millers, blacksmiths, carpenters and shoemakers and distillers.

Washington housed many slaves in the "House for Families," a communal quarters. Although the original building burned early in the 20th century, it has been reconstructed.

Neighborhoods created by and for blacks in the capital, including shops, churches and homes, survive today. Some were sometimes intricately involved in surreptitious escape plots. The Georgetown section of Washington had several "safe houses" used by conductors on the Underground Railroad.