Plans for rapid transit prior to the creation of WMATA in February 1967 focused on the needs of commuters while neglecting some of the District's less affluent neighborhoods. Riots following the
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 destroyed much of the commercial district around 14th and U Streets and planners hoped that adding a subway stop in that area would stimulate redevelopment. The original 1969 plan called for a line under 13th Street NW with just two stations. However, in 1970, the District of Columbia Council agreed to pay an additional $3 million to add a third station and reroute the Green Line under U Street, and then 14th Street NW. Instead of opening in 1976, the first Green Line stations, including U Street, opened in 1991. Trains originally serviced this station as
Yellow Line trains until Green Line service was formally introduced later that year. Yellow Line service resumed in late 2006 as part of what was initially an 18-month experiment to extend that line to Fort Totten station during non-rush hours and weekends. On June 10, 2001, Metro Transit Police officer Marlon C. Morales was killed at the station while intervening in a fare dispute. A plaque exists outside the 13th Street entrance in his honor. "Cardozo" was added to the name just before opening after the nearby
Cardozo High School. "African-Amer Civil War Memorial" was added in 1999 when the
African American Civil War Memorial was completed at U Street and Vermont Ave NW. On November 3, 2011, the WMATA Board voted to shorten all station names longer than 19 characters. Effective June 2012, the station was renamed to "U Street", with "African American Civil War Memorial / Cardozo" as a subtitle. On May 7, 2023, the northeastern terminus of the
Yellow Line was truncated from to , following its reopening after a nearly eight-month-long major rehabilitation project on
its bridge over the
Potomac River and its tunnel leading into . Half of Yellow Line service was re-extended back to Greenbelt on December 31, 2025. == References ==