It is fitting that a major and progressive Black fraternity has a presence in this block of S street, the site of a major struggle against racist housing restrictions. 

Black and white families often lived next to each other in 19th century Washington, particularly in the city center. However, during the first half of the 20th century whites-only housing, playgrounds and schools were developed. Racially restrictive deed covenants were a particularly effective tool for housing segregation. They were regularly supported by the courts.

In August 1921, white residents of the 1700 block of S street NW signed a legally binding agreement to restrict the sale or rental of their houses to white people, even though the row of more modest houses at the western end of this block of S street was already Black-occupied. Of the 40 addresses in the 1700 block listing in the 1921 city directory, the owners of 24 signed the covenant.

In 1922, absentee owner Irene Corrigan signed a contract to sell her house at 1727 S street to Helen Curtis, of the National Association of Negro Women. White attorney John Buckley, of 1719 S street sued. In 1924, the D.C. Court of Appeals sided with Mr. Buckley, arguing that since the District’s schools and recreation facilities were segregated there were ample precedents. More substantively, it concluded that since African Americans were equally free to discriminate restrictive covenants did not violate their civil rights. Moorfield Storey, first president of the NAACP, petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case but the Court declined, determining that the agreement was a private contract between property owners and effectively authorizing the continued and extended use of this device.  (More details at https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/racially-restrictive-covenants-bloomingdale/)

In practice, Black families with resources purchased from white homeowners seeking to sell, defying the covenants barring them from the 1700 block of S Street’s prestigious three-story row houses. Attorney William Houston and his wife Mary, the parents of Harvard Law School graduate Charles Hamilton Houston, moved in. Charles Hamilton Houston was a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School and became Dean of Howard University Law School, and NAACP first special counsel. He is referred to by the NAACP as “The Man Who Killed Jim Crow”. Between 1930 and 1954, Attorney Houston was involved in almost every civil rights case tried before the Supreme Court. He litigated against racial covenants in Columbia Heights, Brookland, Park View, and Bloomingdale. He argued in front of the Supreme Court in April 1948 which ruled that enforcing covenants in the District violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866 requiring equal treatment by the federal government.

Despite these victories, the Dupont neighborhood has remained largely white. The 1990s scandal concerning the Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank’s discriminatory lending practices highlighted allegations from bank staff that loan officers were directed not to provide mortgage loans south of Calvert Street NW or east of Connecticut Avenue, with exceptions for Capitol Hill and Dupont Circle. In other words, the allegation was that the Dupont Circle neighborhood was safe for white investors.

Recent census data has shown dramatic changes in the racial demography of the city overall, but little change in Dupont Circle (shown approximately with red circle).