Martin Luther King Avenue,
Reverends Patrice and Eugene Shepherd are co-pastors who founded Living Word Church, located in the 4100 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue Southwest, in 1991. / Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah
By Denise Rolark Barnes WI Staff Writer
I
n 1967, when Dr. King was planning his historic March on Washington, St. Paul Davis purchased a building on Nichols Avenue in Southeast where he ran a barbershop, beauty salon and cleaners. He was the only African American business owner in Congress Heights, an area that was nearly 72 percent white and where many of the white residents were not thrilled to see Blacks encroaching into their neighborhoods west and south of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. Davis said the owners of a nearby Chinese restaurant that he and other Blacks in the area
occasionally patronized, told him that they didn’t want their business, “because we were running their white customers away,” he said. On the lower end of Nichols Avenue, in Anacostia, there was a burgeoning Black community that came into existence in the 1950s. Blacks in Anacostia had already established businesses and neighborhood organizations, “but whites didn’t want us up on this end. You had to fight when you came up here,” Davis said. “But we made it.” Davis bought three buildings that were attached to each other from the previous white owner and set up shop. He later purchased another storefront prop-
erty also on Nichols Avenue, which his sons now use for their own barbering business. As Davis stood looking out of the ground floor window of his recently renovated Expert Barber Shop, he said he has seen a lot of changes occur along the avenue over the years. Not only has the complexion of the community changed, he said. So has the address where his shop is located. It is no longer 3027 Nichols Avenue, but the name has been changed to Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, S.E. “I was excited to hear Martin Luther King’s name,” Davis said of the slain civil rights leader. “He did so much for Black people.” Not long after King was
killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1968 in Memphis, Tenn., Nichols Avenue changed to Martin Luther King Avenue in the District. Stanley Anderson, a member of the District’s appointed city council and a resident of Anacostia, is credited for getting the legislative authority to change the name, which took place in 1971. Cities across the nation were doing the same and efforts began to call for the establishment of a national holiday in honor of Dr. King. A native of Warrenton, NC, Davis said he was among the thousands of people on the National Mall in 1963 when Dr. King delivered his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech during the March on Washington. “I stood
MLK-32 august 2011 / Celebrating the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial - The Washington Informer Special Issue
about 10-feet from the podium and a white man took me by the hand and said, ‘It’s a wonderful thing, brother.’” Davis laughed and said, “I could not believe it.” On August 27, Davis said he plans to return to the Mall to take part in the historic unveiling and dedication of the new King Memorial at 1968 Independence Avenue, across from the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. He is also proud that a part of the Southeast/Southwest Freeway will be renamed Martin Luther King Drive, if only symbolically, because to him Dr. King was a “powerful figure,” who had a major impact in his life. And,
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