Along the "Nile Valley"

Along the "Nile Valley". Lift Every Voice. , With its Afro-centric shops and connections to Howard University, this stretch of Georgia Avenue has been called the “Nile Valley.” Blue Nile Botanicals opened first at 2826 Georgia in 1977. Hodari Ali, a former editor of Howard’s student newspaper, followed with Pyramid Books at 2849 Georgia, where businessman Kenny Gilmore remembered finding “the whole 360 degrees of black life.” Filmmaker and Howard Professor Haile Gerima opened Sankofa café and bookstore at 2714 Georgia in 1999., Long before the bookstores opened, the Cardozo Sisters operated a hair salon across the street in Howard Manor. Founded in Elizabeth Cardozo Barker’s upstairs apartment, the salon set a refined tone. Its uniformed staff were prohibited from “speaking loudly, gossiping, or calling customers by their first names.” Some clients with “permanent appointments” had their hair done at the same time every week for 30 years. The three sisters, daughters of DC educator Francis Lewis Cardozo, Jr., trained dozens of hairdressers. As a member of the city’s Board of Cosmetology, Barker fought successfully to desegregate the profession. , Ernest Myers began cutting hair at the Eagle Barber Shop at 2800 Georgia in 1947 and eventually bought the business. In order to attract mothers and their young sons, Myers recalled, he played only Christian radio music before 2 pm. He numbered Howard University presidents among his high-powered clients, some of whom first came under Myer’s scissors during their student days. , Deas Delicatessen opened in 1961 at 2901 Georgia, one block north, offering Howard students a three-meal-a-day plan, and serving such celebrities as comedian/activist Dick Gregory and the Urban League’s Vernon Jordan. , Discover More… , DC native Edward “Duke” Ellington lived with his wife Edna and their son Mercer at 2728 Sherman Avenue – one block west of here – from about 1919 to 1921.