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