Civil Rights in Washington, D.C.
To give yourself some general background in the history
of the free African American community in the District
of Columbia, go to:
Green, Constance McLaughlin. The Secret City: A
History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital.
Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1967.
Harrold, Stanley. Subversives: Antislavery Community
in Washington, D.C., 1828- 1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press, 2003.
Logan, Rayford Whittingham. Howard University:
The First Hundred Years, 1867-1967. New York, New
York University Press, 1969. The standard history of
the university.
Moore, Jacqueline M. Leading the Race: The Transformation
of the Black Elite in the Nation’s Capital, 1880-1920.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999.
The “Explore D.C.” website also gives a
selection of brief biographies of District African American
leaders:
http://www.exploredc.org/index.php?id=42
The evolution of the segregated public school system
in the District is covered in:
Dabney, Lillian Gertrude. The History of Schools
for Negroes in the District of Columbia, 1807-1947.
Washington, Catholic University of America Press, 1949.
For Myrdal’s American Dilemma, you have a choice
of reprints of this famed 1944 book:
Myrdal, Gunnar, with the assistance of Richard Sterner
and Arnold Rose. An American Dilemma. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1964, c1962. The hardcover 20th anniversary
reprint, or:
Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma. With
a new introduction by Sisella Bok. New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction Publishers, 1996. A paperback edition, still
in print.
Memoirs and biographies of leaders of the District’s
civil rights movement and the work of Edwin Embree and
others associated with the programs of the Rosenwald
Fund follow:
Becker, Stephen D. Marshall Field III: A Biography.
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1964.
Bethune, Mary McLeod. Mary McLeod Bethune: Building
A Better World: Essays And Selected Documents.
Edited by Audrey Thomas McCluskey and Elaine M. Smith.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.
Embree, Edwin R., and Julia Waxman. Investment
in People: the Story of the Julius Rosenwald Fund.
New York, Harper, 1949.
Holt, Rackham. Mary McLeod Bethune: A Biography.
Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1964.
Janken, Kenneth Robert. White: The Biography of
Walter White, Mr. NAACP. New York: New Press: Distributed
by W.W. Norton, 2003.
Saloon, Roger A. Louis Wirth: A Bio-Bibliography.
New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.
Wikipedia has a good entry on the report of Truman’s
Committee on Civil Rights, “To Secure These Rights”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_Committee_on_Civil_Rights
And you can get this recent reprint of the report:
To Secure These Rights: The Report of Harry S Truman's
Committee on Civil Rights. Edited with an introduction
by Steven F. Lawson. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004.
There’s a wide selection of materials for further
study of Mary Church Terrell. This pair probably gives
you your best start:
Jones, Beverly Washington. Quest for Equality: The
Life and Writings of Mary Eliza Church Terrell, 1863-1954.
Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Pub., 1990.
Terrell, Mary Church. A Colored Woman in a White World.
With an introduction by Nellie Y. McKay. New York: G.K.
Hall; London: Prentice Hall International, 1996. A good
reprint of Terrell’s memoirs, first published
in 1940.
You’ll find this book extremely useful for the
actions of the federal government to advance civil rights
the late 1940s:
Gardner, Michael R. Harry Truman and Civil Rights:
Moral Courage and Political Risks. Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 2002.
The Truman Library has a valuable study guide for this
president’s desegregation of the armed services:
http://www.phs.princeton.k12.oh.us/Departments/SocialScience/ tdugan/change.html
