Howard University, created in 1867, trained and inspired generations of African American leaders and served as a lodestar for its community in a historic neighborhood that placed the highest value on educational achievement. Divisions 10 through 13 of the DC Public Schools, the “colored schools” in pre-1954 segregated Washington, were considered the best in the nation, and teachers were respected as community leaders, mentors, and role models. The former Grimke Elementary School, a Colonial Revival structure just south of U Street on Vermont Avenue, was part of this system and was named for Archibald Grimke, who was born to a slave mother and a white father and became a prominent Washington lawyer and civil rights leader. Garnet-Patterson Junior High School, still a center of community activity, stands on Vermont Avenue between U and V Streets, and all of the city’s high schools for African Americans were located in this vicinity. Among the community’s achievers was Lillian Evans Tibbs, known professionally as Madame Evanti, the first internationally known African American opera singer, who lived at 1910 Vermont Avenue. The grand space at Tenth and U Streets was a gathering place for the community, with Sunday concerts held in a bandstand where the African American Civil War Memorial now stands.