My husband Stanley and I moved to Barney Circle in 1955. We purchased our home at 801 17th St. SE from an elderly white woman and were the only black family on the 700/800 blocks of 17th Street. Many of our neighbors were not friendly and would not speak to us. In fact, after we moved in, a number of the white neighbors moved away.

In the 1950s, we made friends with Mrs. Logan, a white woman who was raising her three granddaughters at 1623 H St. SE. Our families went to the ice capades and the circus together. Another white neighbor, Mrs. Cohen, lived next door at 803 and was also friendly. Sometimes she would go out and forget to lock her doors, and we would watch the house carefully until she returned.

Education
Until the mid-1960s, the public schools were segregated. Some of the public schools for whites in our area were Brent and Bryan elementary schools, Elliott Junior High School and Eastern Senior High School. Some of the schools for blacks were Payne Elementary School and Hine Junior High School (often called “Horrible Hine” because of the bad shape the school was in). The high schools for blacks were Dunbar, Armstrong, Cardozo, Martha Washington (Nursing), Chamberlain and Phelps Vocational. After integration the public school system required children to attend the public schools within their geographic boundaries. Our son attended Payne Elementary, Elliott Junior High and was selected to attend McKinley Technical High because of his interest in engineering. Our two daughters attended Holy Comforter/St. Cyprian Elementary School. The oldest attended Immaculate Conception High which was then in Georgetown. The youngest attended Elizabeth Seaton High in Maryland.

Churches
My family always attended Calvary Episcopal Church at Sixth and I streets NE. Most Barney Circle neighbors did not attend churches in the neighborhood but continued to attend their original churches as we did. Many used the trolley line (until 1962) or bus to travel to church services. The exception was black Catholics who attended the merged Holy Comforter/St. Cyprian church in the neighborhood.

Providence Baptist Church organized cookouts in the triangle park across the street from the church at Kentucky Avenue and 15th Street for the church’s anniversary. Everyone in the neighborhood was invited to attend. I was invited several times to speak as president of Barney Circle Watch Association about the Barney Circle Orange Hat Patrol that we organized in 1989. The church sold delicious dinners on Fridays, as did Holy Comforter/St. Cyprian. Providence Baptist Church was demolished, and townhouses were built on that site.

Neighborhood
In 1952, there was a Sanitary Grocery (later renamed Safeway) at 308 15th St. SE where most Barney Circle residents shopped. We also shopped at the Peoples Drug Store at 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE (later renamed CVS). Many blacks went across the river to shop for clothes at Morton’s on Pennsylvania Avenue SE right on the other side of the Sousa Bridge. Blacks were welcomed there and were allowed to try on hats, which was not allowed at Garfinkel’s and some other stores downtown. Near Morton’s was the famous Steven’s Bakery. People came from across the city to buy the delicious bakery products. Their strawberry shortcakes were one of their popular specialties.

In the 1950s, some people purchased tombstones from the monument company at 17th and H streets SE. After the monument company closed, our Barney Circle Neighborhood Watch Association held flea markets there as part of neighborhood celebrations/picnics, and H Street between 16th and 17th streets would be closed to vehicular traffic. All of the neighbors participated.

Recreation
During segregation (1950s –1960s), our family went to the National Zoo on Easter Mondays for the annual Easter egg roll and other children’s activities. Beginning in 1964 or 1965, our son was one of the first black children to attend the Boys and Girls Club at 17th Street and Massachusetts Avenue SE. After integration, many of the white children stopped attending, and their families stopped financially supporting the club. Black parents started a parent’s organization to support the club, including fundraisers (dinners, bake sales, picnics – some at the triangle park at 17th and C streets SE). Barney Circle Neighborhood Watch Association voted to pay the club dues for approximately 10 children to participate in the club’s summer programs to keep the children occupied.

Seventeenth Street was very quiet until changes were made in the traffic pattern in the early 1970s. Most of the traffic used Kentucky Avenue. Barney Circle did not look the way it does now. It was more of a traditional Washington traffic circle, and the turn-around for the trolley line (which ran until 1962).

There was also a park near 17th Street, where children could sleigh ride down the hill in the winter. They needed to be careful at the bottom of the hill because the railroad tracks were not far away. The trains didn’t run too frequently, and most of us knew the train schedule, so it was safe to sleigh ride down the hill.

Families crossed the Sousa Bridge to Anacostia Park to picnic and fish. In the 1950s-1960s, it was common to see children and adults returning up 17th Street with fish they had caught – many people ate the fish they caught in the Anacostia, but we did not. People fished mostly on the east bank of the river. The people at the marinas on the west bank did not welcome people fishing nearby.

Until 1971, the Senators baseball team played at RFK stadium, and my husband and I attended regularly with our children and neighborhood kids. In fact, two children could attend Saturday games for free for every adult who purchased a ticket.