thumb|Intersection of 14th and Hemlock Streets NW in Shepherd Park, February 2018
thumb|Map of [[Washington, D.C., with Shepherd Park highlighted in maroon]]
Shepherd Park is a neighborhood in the northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. In the years following World War II, restrictive covenants which had prevented Jews and African Americans from purchasing homes in the neighborhood were no longer enforced, and the neighborhood became largely Jewish and African American. Over the past 40 years, the Jewish population of the neighborhood has declined (though it is now increasing again) but the neighborhood has continued to support a thriving upper and middle class African American community. The Shepherd Park Citizens Association and Neighbors Inc. led efforts to stem white flight from the neighborhood in the 1960s and 1970s, and it has remained a continuously integrated neighborhood, with very active and inclusive civic groups.
Shepherd Park and the rest of Ward 4 were represented in the Council of the District of Columbia by Muriel Bowser, until her election as Mayor of the District of Columbia in the fall of 2014. It is home to a number of prominent people, including former NAACP President Benjamin Jealous. A number of judges, professors, newspaper reporters, and doctors also live in the community.
Geography
The northern line of the neighborhood is defined by Eastern Avenue NW, which divides Shepherd Park from Silver Spring, Maryland. The neighborhood is further bounded at the south by Parks at Walter Reed (the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center), at the east by Georgia Avenue NW, and the west by 16th Street NW.
thumb|Alexander Robey ShepherdShortly before becoming governor (in 1868), Shepherd built a grand Second Empire-style Victorian that once stood near the corner of Floral and 14th Street. (The carriage house still stands in the alley off of Floral, entrance across from the modern house.) Shepherd chose the location because of its elevation and its proximity to Rock Creek.
Shepherd dubbed his large country home "Bleak House" after the Dickens novel Bleak House, which he and his wife were reading at the time of their home's construction. The mansion was demolished in 1916.
After developers acquired the land around 1911, they designed it so that the new homes would sit on large tracts of land, and they advertised the location as a "high-class" neighborhood. The developers also made sure that the land was bound by covenants prohibiting its sale to blacks and Jews. The covenants stood until after World War II when the Supreme Court struck them down as unconstitutional. Residents protested, saying that the neighborhood needed a library much more than another fast food location. and the library opened in 1990. Named the Juanita E. Thornton/Shepherd Park Library, it is named after the neighborhood activist who led the neighborhood association in its efforts to have the library built there. which opened in 1990.