BLACK WASHINGTON, D.C.,
AND HOWARD UNIVERSITY
[T]here developed at Howard and in the Washington community associated with the university, patterns of response, and frequently of initiative and innovation, that incorporated and in large measure took for granted both protest and scholarship. Responses that came from this quasi-federal institution of higher learning for the descendants of slaves in a segregated society reflected at that time the intricate and often tense balance between isolation and contact; between the racially parochial world of Negro life and the emergent and the presumably existent non-segregated, albeit still racially aware cosmopolitan life-styles and societies; and between town and gown in Washington and beyond.
A quick glance at any history of the black experience in Washington, D.C., through the end of World War II reveals that it was exclusively black. The wall of segregation that had begun to crumble during Reconstruction was reinforced at the turn of the century and then completely restored during Woodrow Wilson's presidency. Although it is difficult to argue that the District was ever truly integrated, segregation did not become government policy until Wilson arrived in Washington accompanied by a powerful cohort of southern congressmen who had pledged their support of white supremacy. Under Wilson's administration, black and white employees were isolated from each other in the Bureau of Engraving cafeteria, and