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Shaw emerged from freed slave encampments in the rural outskirts of Washington, D.C. It was originally called "Uptown," in an era when the city's boundary ended at "Boundary Street" (now Florida Avenue). In the Urban Renewal Era, the neighborhood became known as Shaw because the neighborhood Junior High School was named after the commander of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Civil War Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.

The neighborhood thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the pre-Harlem center of African American intellectual and cultural life. During this time, President Andrew Johnson signed Howard University’s founding charter. Furthermore, in 1925, Professor Alain LeRoy Locke advanced the idea of "The New Negro” while Langston Hughes descended from LeDroit Park to hear the "sad songs" of 7th Street.

Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968, riots erupted in many D.C. neighborhoods, including Shaw, Columbia Heights, and the H Street, NE corridor. The 1968 Washington, D.C. riots marked the beginning of a decline in population and development that condemned much of the inner city to a generation of economic decay. After the riots, Shaw was left without electricity and with burnt down buildings. Crime and fear increased. Succeeding the riots, Shaw civic leaders Walter Fauntroy and Watha T. Daniel led grassroots community renewal projects with the Model Inner City Community Organization (MICCO). MICCO used federal grant money to employ African American architects, engineers, and urban planners in inner-city Washington D.C.