Educator and athlete, and the first Black woman to serve as Dean of Women at any American university, Lucy Diggs Slowe was born in Berryville, Virginia on July 4th 1885. She was the youngest of seven children. Her father died before Lucy turned one and her mother died when she was six years old. Lucy and her sister were then raised by her aunt, Martha Price, in Lexington, Virginia, who later moved the family to Baltimore, Maryland, so that her niece could receive a formal education. At the age of 13, she entered the Baltimore segregated public school system attending the Baltimore Colored High and Training School.
Lucy graduated second in her class in 1904, receiving one of the two-sponsored scholarships to Howard from the Baltimore City School Board. Slowe was the first person from her school to attend Howard University. Immediately she became involved with Howard University's extracurricular activities, foreshadowing the brave and industrious career that lay ahead of her. She was Vice President and Secretary of the Alpha Phi Literary Society, and President of the Women's Tennis Club. Slowe co-founded and became the first President of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first sorority for African-American Women. She was instrumental in drafting the sorority's constitution.
She also served as the chapter's first president. Lucy graduated as class valedictorian from Howard University in 1908 with a degree in English. After graduation, Slowe returned to Baltimore to teach English at her alma mater, Baltimore Colored High School, now called Douglass High School. During the summer of 1911 she started studying at Columbia University in New York, where she earned her Masters of Arts degree in 1915. After earning her M.A. she returned to Washington, DC to teach. The District of Columbia school system attracted outstanding teachers, especially for Dunbar High School, the academic high school for African Americans.
Beginning in 1919, the District of Columbia asked Lucy Slowe to create the first junior high school (Shaw) in its system for Blacks and then appointed her as principal. This was a position she accepted and performed honorably and intelligently. It was then that she gained the administrative experience she would rely upon for the rest of her career. She led Shaw junior high school until 1922, creating the first integrated in-service training for junior high school teachers in the District, which was conducted by Columbia University. Her curriculum and teacher training systems attracted attention from Howard University.
Slowe served as assistant secretary of the Baltimore National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, (NAACP) advocating for women’s right to vote. In 1919, she was elected president of the College Alumnae Club, an association of college-educated Black women, where she worked alongside Mary Church Terrell. Slowe also maintained her athletic ability at this time. Lucy Diggs Slowe was a founding member of the American Tennis Association (ATA) in 1916. In 1917, she won the inaugural ATA championship match at Druid Hill Park in Baltimore, Maryland, becoming the first Black woman to win a national championship in any sport, paving the way for Althea Gibson, who later broke the International Tennis color line.
Slowe's big break came when, in 1922, she was hired as a Professor of English at Howard University, her alma mater. Shortly afterwards she was appointed Dean of Women at the University. Slowe was the first African-American female to serve in that position at any university in the United States. It was during her tenure at Howard University that she made her most significant contributions to society and history. Lucy Diggs Slowe embraced the female deanship position at Howard, promoting it to prominence as a model for other African American Universities. As Dean of Women at Howard University, she imparted her vision of training women for the modern world.
She exceeded expectations, further establishing a place for women in higher education and serving as a national model of how to empower women with tools to succeed on college campuses. Deans of women at Black colleges traditionally had functioned more as chaperons or guardians of morality than as educators, but as an administrator and educator, Slowe was far more concerned with developing Black woman culturally and preparing them for leadership roles than with enforcing strict rules. Slowe's mission to improve conditions for her students was also achieved through her active participation in organizations that promoted the advancement of Black women.
Nearly right after her appointment to this position, Slowe was made President of the National Association of College Women (NACW). Under her direction, the organization aimed at improving academic and living standards as well as provide leadership opportunities for African-American women on campus. Moreover, Slowe protested the exclusion of women from university policy-making activities, salary discrimination based on gender, and the 'appropriateness' of women's education. Slowe was relentless in pursuing equality in higher education for the women at Howard and abroad, and refused to allow anyone to derail her goals.
The concept of self-determination was an extremely important idea held by Slowe. She believed that the role of women was changing, and if women were to keep up they would need to learn how to live independently and intelligently. Slowe wanted women to be able to live and think for themselves, and she saw college as the medium in which to inspire political and social activism among women. She was able to get three female residence halls built in 1931 so women could live on campus at Howard University. Lucy Diggs Slowe also replaced the antiquated female chaperone system with 'mentors,' who helped navigate female freshmen through their first year of university study.
She influenced the philosophy and appointment of female deans to African American campuses throughout the country. Another major goal Slowe fought hard for was gender equality within the African-American race. Slowe took major professional risks to implicate sexual harassment against female students by male faculty members. She broke racial barriers as one of the earliest members of the mostly White American Association of University Women (AAUW). She served on the advisory board of the National Youth Administration (NYA), and was an active member of the National Association of Deans of Women, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and the YWCA.
In 1927, she composed a memo regarding a parent's concerns over a professor's vulgar and "improper" language. This was one of the first written sexual assault cases involving Black women. After advocating for the female students, Slowe's relationship with male faculty members was difficult for the remainder of her time at Howard. From the time of this incident forward, Slowe was forced to fight an uphill battle with the President of Howard University over increasing the quality of women's education there. By 1935, along with Mary McLeod Bethune and others, Slowe co-organized the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and served served as the organization's first executive secretary.
She would continue to fight for the rest of her life for these women. But, in the fall of 1937, she would have to hand the fight over to her successors when she passed away. During the last 15 years of Slowe's life, Mary Powell Burrill, a recognized Washington, D.C., public school teacher and playwright, was her partner and housemate. Her service to the women of Howard University was inestimable. A year after her death a memorial was held for her, where some of the most famous female crusaders of higher education for women gathered to honor Lucy Slowe's memory and legacy. Lucy Diggs Slowe was a revolutionary figure in the field of women's higher education.
Her ideas of independence and self-government for women were radical for the time in which she lived. In 1942, the United States government built a dormitory to house African-American female government workers, as housing in the city was extremely crowded because of new workers for the war effort. After World War II, the government transferred the building to Howard University for use as a dormitory. Named Lucy Diggs Slowe Hall in her honor, it opened in 1943. Lucy Diggs Slowe was a true pioneer in the shaping and preparation of African-American females for life in the "modern world" and for the future. Her dreams, ideas and dedication as an educator and leader deserves recognition.