Lift Every Voice

— Georgia Avenue/Pleasant Plains Heritage Trail —

These Rowhouses Were Built by developer Harry Wardman, whose houses, hotels, and apartment buildings are known for elegant, solid construction. When these became available in 1912, buyers snapped them up. Among them were an electrician, a policeman, and an iron worker.

All were working class, and all were white. Wardman, like most developers of his era, had added a covenant, or agreement, to the deeds prohibiting sale or rental to "any Negro or colored person under a penalty of Two Thousand Dollars." Despite the covenants, by 1930 the houses were all occupied by African Americans. The change happened partly because of the race riot that occurred near here in 1919, and partly because black residential sections near U Street and Howard University expanded. In 1948 the Supreme Court declared racial covenants unenforceable.

Racial change is never permanent, though. In 1956, when Lily Jones and her family moved to Hobart Place, she founded a few white neighbors: "When We moved in, " recalled Jones, "they moved out." In her time on Hobart Place, Jones saw Latino families come and go, and the return of the whites. Recently multi-racial block parties resumed here, where Jones and her husband George raised eight children in their "study, well-built" house.

This block's best-kept secret may be its tiny "Pocket parks." Responding to requests from Hobart Place Block Club, Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson, added Hobart Place's existing parks to her campaign to beautify Washington. Local philanthropists Carmen and David Lloyd Kreeger funded the work.


This house is a mansion...
This house holds the key to the future
and the majesty of the past...
This house has seen its share of ups and downs,
but year after year it stands stronger than before.
This house is a fortress.
This house is love.
This house is family
— Maya Alston, granddaughter of Lily Johnson.

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