By: Brianna Rhodes (Founder, Brianna Rhodes Writes) and the Black Broadway on U Project =========================================================== Let’s explore a time when Black excellence reigned in the nation’s capital. From its music, art and commerce, Washington, D.C.’s U Street community thrived as a bustling area full of achievement, culture, intellect and…

By Shellée M. Haynesworth | Executive Producer/Creator, Black Broadway on U Project From crazy cool to virtuoso piano rolls, it’s almost impossible not to acknowledge how the 88 keys have played a significant role in the evolution of jazz and helped popularize the genre beyond its bluesy roots in…

Washington, DC – September 29, 2016 – There are few physical reminders left of the U Street corridor’s rich African-American history. Once home to jazz legends like Duke Ellington and frequented by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald in the 1920s, U Street was nearly as important to…

Washington, DC – June 1, 2016 – With gentrification rapidly changing the demographic landscape of Washington D.C.’s historic U Street corridor the history of what is known as “Black Broadway” lives in former journalist Shellee Haynesworth’s virtual time capsule in cyberspace. Haynesworth’s Black Broadway on U multi-media project tells…

Washington, DC – May 5, 2016 WAMU 88.5 Bandwidth – Multimedia project Black Broadway on U archives the people and places that made D.C.’s U Street corridor a hub of black culture during the first half of the 20th century. On U Street in 2016, it’s easy to stumble…

‪WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 4, 2016 – We’re excited to announce that Awesome Foundation DC selects the Black Broadway on U: A Transmedia Project as the recipient of their March 2016 ‪micro-grant‬. How ‪awesome‬ is that! Everyone wins when their local community steps up to keep its cultural legacy…

Team Black Broadway on U hacks it up and creates Duke’s DC: Just Jumpin’ and Jivin’, an interactive, scavenger hunt game design that celebrates Duke Ellington’s DC Ellingtonia at the first-ever National Black Programming Consortium/Silicon Harlem hackathon, ‪Hack360‬ in historic Harlem. (Pictured far right, Shellée Haynesworth, Executive Producer/Creator, Black…

Black Benefactors is hosting “Black Broadway on U: Echoes of An Era” Community Learning Walking Tour Luncheon for Community Investment Network’s 11th annual conference on October 2! It’s an historical journey back into time when DC’s greater U Street community businesses were black owned and run; its buildings built…

IN THIS ISSUE! We’ve launched our interactive map, Black Broadway on U: Discover The Community; where our site users can EXPLORE + DISCOVER some of the “unsung” PathBreakers and landmark places from this historic Black D.C. neighborhood, TAKE THE TOUR HERE: WATCH! Black Broadway on U’s latest mini-doc stories;…

U Street’s Funk Parade honors A Women of D.C. Funk: Shellee Haynesworth