‘Such a time of history and change, we are going into the light’

THE crossroads America passed through this week comes to life in many places but few capture it better than the junction of U Street and 14th in Washington DC.

The site’s storied and often difficult past has been intertwined with the struggle for racial equality.

Traditionally the city’s black communities in the east and white neighbourhoods in the west were separated and connected by 14th Street while the jazz bars and studios along U Street were close to the epicentre of the African American cultural renaissance and struggle for empowerment since the 1920s.