INTRODUCTION
Iwas shocked to read in the October 1917 issue of the popular Crisis magazine the following: “Miss Lucy D. Slowe of Baltimore, Md., has won five cups for tennis playing this season and the championship cup of New York for two successive seasons.”1 Where did Slowe, one of the twentieth century’s most significant forces in higher education for African American women in the United States, find the time to play and win in national tennis competitions among all her club meetings, administrative duties, political engagements, and teaching, speaking, and publishing commitments? Who knew she had had such a decorated athletic career?
I first came to know about Lucy Diggs Slowe because of her national reputation as one of the founders of the first collegiate historically Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (1908). I was familiar with her employers and a few of her accomplishments but not with her personal life. In her letter to her dear friend Mary P. Burrill, Slowe wrote of the difficulty she had with her multifaceted personhood and her inability to ever know which part of herself to recognize fully. “There are too many of me for me to know each one,” she professed. “Which shall I listen to, above all?”2 The truth teller, the sportswoman,
the contemplative loner, or the “mother self”— who and what guided Lucy Diggs Slowe? Known as the first African American woman to win a major title in any sport, the first Black woman to serve as dean of women at any American university, and a founder and first president of three national organizations, Slowe was dynamic. At a time when Black women were undervalued in America, she build on the momentum among her contemporaries to blaze new trails, even in uncharted territories. Her words reveal the deep desires many Black women held in moving the movement forward and articulating the intersectionality of race, sex, and class discourse. I recognized that like many other Black women in America, she sought to be understood, as much as I seek to understand her.
Born on July 4, 1883, in Berryville, Virginia, Slowe was the youngest of seven children. Her parents named her Lucy, meaning light. Her father, Charles Henry Slowe, died in 1884 when she was nine months old. Her mother, Frances Potter Slowe, died not long after, in 1889. Slowe was sent home from school at the age of six due to “unruly” behavior following the loss of her remaining parent. The decision was made that Slowe would move to Maryland to live with her father’s sister, Martha Slowe Price. The transition was tough, and Slowe was homeschooled for three years— an unusual start to the academic journey of a nationally acclaimed educator. Flipping through multiple versions of her self-written biographies, I noticed that she lied about her age. Being out of school for so long resulted in her returning to the same grade three years older than her classmates. She was twenty-one years old when she graduated high school as salutatorian and learned she had been granted a full scholarship to attend Howard University (after the valedictorian rejected the opportunity).
In 1908, Slowe earned her bachelor of arts degree in English from Howard and went on to exhibit her passion for education and leadership in the classroom as a schoolteacher back in Baltimore, Maryland. As an educator, Slowe became a pioneer in the field, and her vision of the type of influence teachers could have was expansive. When she entered the Graduate School of Arts at Columbia University, she matriculated only during the summer semesters to ensure that she did not interrupt her teaching career, earning a master of arts degree in 1915. She returned to Washington, D.C., first to teach English at Armstrong High School. Four years later she was invited to establish and lead Robert Gould Shaw Junior High School, the first junior high school for Black people in the nation’s capital. But it was her journey back home to Howard University that would set the bar for her many accomplishments.
In 1922, Slowe received another significant invitation. President J. Stanley Durkee requested she “consider a call to Howard University as Dean of Women.” 3 After five months of negotiation and under six very critical conditions, she accepted and returned to her alma mater at age thirty-nine to take one of the top administrative positions. There she got to work, demanding change. Dean Lucy Diggs Slowe opened her annual address with a blunt greeting to the male students: “Young men, I came to do a job!”4 Howard University was where she felt her “mother self” and where occasionally “life’s external pulses beat wildly.”5 As the newly appointed dean of women and an associate professor of English, Slowe was most concerned with the great question before many college institutions and society in general built for white males—the “problem of the higher education of Negro women in light of conditions in the modern world.”6 Each day, she was motivated to perfect her ability to lead, learn, and envision a better quality of education for the Black woman.
What “sort of training should be given to fit her for life in the world to which she must go?” 7 Her intention was to disrupt the stronghold sexism held on distorting logic and reason. As the Howard University Record reported, when she spoke, she forced white men, white women, and Black men to confront their sense of oppression:
A new day has dawned for the women of Howard University and through them, for the University itself. For is not the inevitable law, that a good woman is “the foundation stone of all civilization,” at work in the University? There is a new force in Howard University that will bring help, inspiration, guidance, culture into the life of the women here. Already a coveted view down the long avenue of time has revealed the New Howard Woman as she is conceived by Dean Lucy Slowe, the new force of the University faculty that must make itself felt far down through the future.8
Yet while some people sang her praises, others referred to her as the “hall matron of the principal whore house in Washington.”9 Slowe quickly learned (like many other Black women did) that you can be everything for everybody and still not be valued. Different from white middle-class women and suffrage leaders, Slowe knew she was without privilege, protection, power and, in some instances, even a presence. Yet, with the honor of leading a generation of Black women into the modern world, she was confident that her new position would give her the ability to propel the movement forward. Martha S. Jones in Vanguard explains how she connected to the groundwork and movements of other Black women in “the rocky soil of women’s antislavery conventions, Black Methodist conferences, and the heart of Black politics.”10 Standing upon the shoulders of suffrage
leader Mary Church Terrell, journalist Ida B. Wells, educator Anna Julia Cooper, poet Francis Watkins, and writer-activist Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Slowe would make her job another powerful voice for liberation.
By the 1930s, according to Stephanie Y. Evans in Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850–1954, “black women were on average thirty years behind black men and white women in earning the bachelor’s, thirteen years behind in the master’s, twenty-four years behind in high honors like Phi Beta Kappa, and fifty years behind in earning a Ph.D.” 11 Schools were admitting both men and women, white and Black, yet data about housing are scarce, and graduation rates among Black women lagged. When Slowe returned to Howard University in 1922 it had achieved its highest enrollment rate to date, and the federal appropriation for its funding increased from $63,200 to $190,000.
Slowe’s aim was to create academic spaces suitable for the type of woman graduate the nation needed. Miner Hall, built in 1868, was outdated and no longer acceptable. With architect Albert Irvin Cassel, Slowe envisioned a space nurturing “the awakening of a new spirit of mind, a new mode of thought, a new standard of life, [and] a new vision of light” for Howard women.12 The new dormitories were a model for women’s residence halls, drawing national attention and tourists. In her speech at the cornerstone laying, Slowe poured out her vision and prayers for the women and girls who would come to Howard University. The generation of women that Slowe and her colleagues Mary McLeod Bethune (founder of BethuneCookman College), Charlotte Hawkins Brown (founder of the Palmer Memorial Institute), and Nannie Helen Burroughs (founder of the National Training School for Women and Girls) belonged to and served symbolized a nation of Black
women in higher education—nationally and internationally— dedicated to being heard, seen, and considered.
The political landscape began to change for many African Americans who were privileged with the opportunity to lead their race onward and upward. No longer “irresponsible and silly” young members of elite social groups, here and there race men and women began to re-examine their conceptualizations of purpose and impact. In August 1933, in the nation’s windiest city, Lucy Diggs Slowe delivered an address to her sorority sisters at the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority’s sixteenth Boulé Celebration and silver anniversary. Her call to action was a reorienting one. She recognized the changes in the philosophy of education for the Negro women of America, and she also recognized the needs of the world and the impact a reoriented group of Black women leaders could have. Slowe’s vision for the organization’s expansion did not mean growth in numbers and did not speak to the political power of its members, focusing instead on “the measure of our imagination and of our purpose for our future work.” 13 These words permeated the flesh and bones of a young wife and mother dedicated to social services. “About three years ago I heard you speak to the AKA Boulé Banquet in Chicago . . . I decided very definitively to be of real service to my community,” wrote Bennie Ruth Doneghy in 1936, asking Slowe for a letter of recommendation for an Urban League fellowship that would alleviate her financial troubles and allow her to continue in the field of social work and “be of real assistance to Negro girls in this community.” 14 Through an almost prophetic voice, Slowe’s words continue to speak to the mission and purpose of Black college-educated women that we still aim to achieve today.
I was equally surprised to discover how little Slowe was compensated and the nonfinancial price she had to pay to work
at Howard University. I did not know about the pressure she felt being a role model for a community of women who were pledging loyalty to her and a vision she created while in her dorm room with her friends. I never contemplated what guided her to frame the office of dean of women and the field of personnel work at Howard University. I did not know her thoughts about being invited by prominent men such as W. E. B. Du Bois to the fifth Pan-African Congress in 1929 and President Roosevelt to the White House in 1936, while simultaneously being questioned about her womanhood.
To date, Faithful to the Task at Hand: The Life of Lucy Diggs Slowe (2012) is the only full-length text published about her entire life. After her death in 1937, Dr. Marion Thompson Wright (a student of Slowe’s) began composing a biography. Wright passed away in 1962, leaving 228 handwritten pages. Slowe’s archived papers were originally housed at Morgan State University after her death, but in 1966 they were donated to Howard University under the leadership of scholarlibrarian and bibliographer Dr. Dorothy Porter Wesley. Porter and Carroll L. Miller (also a student of Slowe’s at Shaw Junior High School) attempted to continue where Wright left off. Both died before finishing the manuscript. Before his death Miller passed on the task to his student Anne S. Pruitt-Logan, who finally published the complete text in 2012. A long labor of love, the manuscript has become a reference with multiple voices on the life of Slowe.
Since then, additional texts such as Lone Voyagers: Academic Women in Coeducational Universities, 1870–1937 (1989), Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington Part III (2017), Baltimore Sports: Stories from Charm City (2016), and To Live More Abundantly: Black Collegiate Women, Howard University, and the Audacity of Dean Lucy Diggs Slowe (2022) have
appeared and highlight portions of Slowe’s story. Nevertheless, although they screened more than 700 letters, 30 speeches, 15 essays, and 110 articles by Slowe herself, these four books just scratch the surface of what she was trying to say. She wrote voluminously to men who were not listening, delivered speeches to crowds who didn’t expect to hear her voice, and worked with such a strong calling to her faith. The story of Lucy Diggs Slowe is one of metamorphoses, revelations, and profundity, on the part of the reader and the subject. Lucy was a light through which we can now discover her words and her path.
Her Truth and Service is a presentation of Slowe’s uninterrupted voice. Her words carry us deep into the thoughts, fears, hopes, hurt, and determination of a woman. She is revealed less as a public figure and more as an educator, leader, champion, and motherless child. In “The Evolution of Dora Cole,” Slowe writes: “What my mother’s dying had to do with my playing, I could not see. When my pet chicken died, James Williams and I dug a grave, sang over it and buried it, but we did not stop playing. Naturally I did not see why I should stop now; but I suppose no five-year-old, who has ruled her mother and then her everybody else, sees why her mother dies.”15
Slowe was born in segregated Virginia, raised in prejudiced Maryland, and trapped in discriminatory D.C. Her life stood at the crossroads of many major American transitions. By age thirteen she witnessed the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. When she was twenty-nine the Woman Suffrage Procession took place in Washington, D.C. At thirty-five she saw the influenza pandemic on the rise, and then by the time she was forty-six she struggled through the economic downturn of the Great Depression. However, Slowe was relentless. Without her biological parents, Lucy Diggs Slowe took hold of a spiritual inheritance with a bold confidence that was unusual to the
social structure at that time, given her background. Slowe’s resilient and untold stories teach us that regardless of the time, “Truth is our cornerstone: character is our completed structure.”16
This collection of letters, speeches, and essays by Lucy Diggs Slowe is the first of its kind. Chapter 1 introduces her writings and her admirable list of affiliations. Slowe upheld ideals centered on the development of college women and Black folks across America and abroad. She was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority of Howard University and chairman of the Committee on Deans and Advisors to Women in Colored Schools of the National Association of College Women, and her achievements reflect her drive to help improve the experiences of Black college women at Howard and other colleges across the nation. A beacon of much-needed change and hope, Slowe navigated life as a woman in a time when white women and Black women alike fought for suffrage. Black women were restricted by racial and gendered lines, more often than not barred from entering white or male-dominated spaces (often both simultaneously). A pioneer who pursued political, social, and intellectual freedom for herself and for other women, Slowe fought for the inclusion of Howard women in the conversation on suffrage. From poignant speeches such as the “Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Sixteenth Boulé Celebration” (1933), “The Future of the Association of College Women” (1923), and “The College Woman and Her Community” (1934) to correspondence such as “Letter by Slowe to Honorable Herbert Hoover” (1930), she remained adamant about the importance of inclusion for all.
Chapter 2 reveals Slowe to be a brilliant student and an astute scholar. She graduated Howard University as valedictorian of her class and was hired immediately as a teacher at
Baltimore Colored High School. After seven years in Maryland, Slowe returned to Washington, D.C., to teach at Armstrong Manual Training High School. By 1919, she was called to establish and become the first principal of the first Junior High School for Negroes, which had a reputation for a strong belief in building excellence and character. Even then, Slowe was clear in her objectives: “As an apostle of the beautiful, love beauty yourselves, expose your children to it, help them to create it and thus assist them to become living examples of that perfection which is the essential of all culture and the essence of all beauty. This, it seems to me is the supreme task of every teacher.” 17 Howard University taught Slowe what she must do in the classroom, but she held a strong desire to advocate for excellence when the full humanity of Black people was still under debate by others. As she makes clear, Black people were fully aware of their humanity without equivocation. This chapter demonstrates Slowe’s desire to teach as well as the burden she carried in demanding quality education for all. Letters to concerned Fisk alumnus Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, curious deans of women at other schools, and collaborative faculty at Columbia University’s Teachers College demonstrate the high demand for her wisdom. Radical speeches such as “What Shall We Teach Our Youth?” (1925), addressed to a packed YMCA audience in Baltimore; “My Creed for Life” (1933), addressed to Shaw Junior High School graduates; and “What Are You Standing For?” (1937), addressed to Howard University students, express how deeply rooted her determination to bear fruits of beauty for young people was in her life philosophy.
Chapter 3 introduces Slowe’s life as Howard University dean of women. Miller and Pruitt-Logan, in Faithful to the Task at Hand , describe Slowe as being “lightyears ahead of her time
and progressive in her outlook.”18 A call from her alma mater to be the first person in this newly created position allowed her to envision what educational institutions must do for women and girls. Her diligent determination to prepare them for life in the “modern world” blazed a trail that is immeasurable. Slowe acknowledged the setbacks she would face as a woman in a male-dominated academic institution and a Black woman in the white male-dominated world of academia. Nevertheless, she made it her responsibility to empower college women and girls and develop future leaders, using her invaluable life experiences. With articles such as “The New Howard Woman” (1922), “The Dean of Women Talked to Men” (1922), and “Howard Women Join Health Movement” (1923), this chapter offers a lens into Slowe’s role as dean of women and examines Slowe in the light of her power and undeniable desire to help other women and girls harness their own.
In chapter 4 we see Slowe as a woman in pursuit of equity and justice. Her passion to eliminate racism was like a deep-sea undercurrent, carrying to the surface her affinity with Black nationalism. The trail of Lucy Diggs Slowe’s life mainly evolved Up South. By 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois’s book The Souls of Black Folk had been published, and Slowe, a disciple like many others at this time, stated in a National Radio address, “No Negro however cultured, however bravely he and his father have fought for the preservation of the democracy can move about in this fair city with freedom enjoyed even by aliens.”19 She was only one generation removed from slavery. The problem, indeed, was the color line. Slowe had been a great student at a time of intense racial pride and intellectual debate. In speeches such as “The Effects of Race Prejudice on the Negro Student’s Thinking,” given to an all-white crowd of Columbia University students; “The Negro in the New Order,” given to Howard
University students; and “A Woman Without a Country,” given to the Pan-American Congress, Slowe was honest, conscious, and unapologetic. Her pursuit of equity and justice served as a torch, igniting and illuminating conversations about race and gender that were otherwise interrupted or silenced.
Chapter 5 positions Slowe as a servant leader, a woman dedicated to training other women for the modern world. Lucy Diggs Slowe was one of the founders and first presidents of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated (1908), the National Association of College Women (1924), and the National Association of Deans of Women and Advisers to Girls in Negro Schools (1929), the first and the latter of which still exist today. She was also the first Black member of the National Association of Deans of Women (1922); University Pastor at Talladega College (1930); First Secretary of the National Council of Negro Women (1935); a leader within the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), Family Service Association, Community Chest, Northwest Settlement House, National Youth Administration (NYA) for the District of Columbia, and the Conference on the Cause and Cure of War; and member of the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Du Bois Circle. Slowe was also invited to the White House to discuss issues involving people of African descent nationally and internationally. This chapter shows the compelling nature of a reformer determined to both serve and lead at a time when women held no official political power. Slowe’s persistence brings to the forefront the question why and how she did it. In correspondence from intimate letters between sorority sisters to exchanges with women’s suffrage movement leaders, deans of women, political leaders,
and even U.S. presidents, Slowe never denied that “the time is always now.”20
Chapter 6 traces the arduous battle Slowe faced with Howard University President Mordecai Johnson and other men who undermined her power. She learned the art of debate as an undergraduate student, and defending her position as dean of women was never a problem, even against Johnson. This chapter vividly describes the intense battle Slowe waged against personal, institutional, and state subjugation, dealing with men who refused to acknowledge her worth and the worth of women at Howard and across America. Offering her voice to a population of women whose voices were silenced, she assumed a position the men she battled refused to acknowledge—that of a woman owning her power. Howard University offered freedoms and opportunities to men that Howard women could not yet fathom (much less explore). President Johnson exemplifies this contrast in his scathing letters to Slowe; yet under pressure, he learned that she was a true force to be reckoned with. Nor was President Johnson the only man to question and challenge Slowe’s authority and morality. Her battle with Professor Clarence Harvey Mills was another obstacle Slowe faced. Though she fought with valor, she was not completely free of the consequences of challenging oppressive men who threaten the safety of women and the pursuit of gender equity. Nonetheless, she refused to sit idly by as powerful men abused their positions and subjugated Black women in a hostile atmosphere. Through articles about Slowe being Howard University president and Howard University alumni reflections about President Johnson, paired with revealing letters exchanged with President Johnson and Clarence Harvey Mills, this chapter illuminates the battles Slowe faced and the praise she received in recognition of her struggles.
Slowe was a dear friend to many throughout her lifetime. She invited friends and hosted guests in a house she purchased and shared with educator Mary Burrill in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Her spirited nature made her beloved and revered until her death in 1937. Chapter 7 honors Slowe as a pioneer for race and gender equity and for her humanity in forging close bonds in her community. She left behind letters that offer condolences and congratulations and note milestones in the lives of the people she touched. This chapter further provides an intimate look into Slowe’s life outside of her academic and professional engagements. Her voice echoes in her letters as she shares personal updates and events such as Burrill’s fourteenth annual reading of “The Other Wise Man,” the success of The Women’s Dinner, and even the courses she would be teaching at Howard and the rest she desperately needed after her arduous battle with President Johnson. Mementos of a life lived over eighty years ago, the letters between Slowe and her companions encapsulate her commitment to her friendships and community. Letters from notable figures such as Marion Banister, assistant Treasurer of the United States (1937), and Dr. Dwight Holmes (1937) reveal Slowe’s illness and the concern of those close to her. Letters and notes sent after her death by the likes of Mary McLeod Bethune, director of the Division of Negro Affairs (1937), and Hilda A. Davis, dean of women (1938), express the great loss the Howard community and nation experienced with her passing. Slowe’s death was felt deeply across America by those who considered her a friend and others who did not know the pleasure of calling her one. Chapter 7 concludes the book with a final look at her life.
Through intimate letters, articles of praise, and potent speeches , Her Truth and Service provides an in-depth look at
Lucy Diggs Slowe’s journey in the world and path to selfdiscovery. She was a courageous speaker, a thoughtful writer, a fearless leader, and a loyal companion. Offering a voice for Black women and women who were and have been silenced for far too long, she is a model for generations of women who refuse to be limited. Befitting her name, Lucy Diggs Slowe is a light, a beacon of hope, and may she continue to shine brightly.
LUCY DIGGS SLOWE (1885–1937) was one of the most remarkable and accomplished figures in the history of Black women’s higher education. She was a builder of institutions, organizing the first historically Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, while a student at Howard University in 1908; establishing the first junior high school for Black students in Washington, D.C.; and founding as well as leading other major national and community organizations. In 1922 Slowe was appointed the first dean of women at Howard, making her the first Black woman to serve as dean at any American university. Beyond her trailblazing career in higher education, she was a committed teacher, an ardent antiracist advocate, and even a national tennis champion.
Her Truth and Service showcases Slowe’s speeches, articles, and letters, illuminating her multifaceted accomplishments and unwavering dedication to the quest for equality and justice. In these texts, readers encounter Slowe’s powerful voice and keen intellect, witnessing her triumphs and travails as an educator, a leader, and a Black woman in a deeply exclusionary society. Slowe’s writings depict her personal and professional efforts to topple race and gender barriers and open up greater opportunities for Black women and girls, as well as the obstacles she faced in maledominated institutions, including the Howard administration. Her Truth and Service is an important document of a significant figure in the development of Black institutions and an inspiring testament to a lifelong struggle for social justice.
“Drawing on a rich archive of letters, Amy Yeboah Quarkume brings needed attention to a pioneer in Black women’s higher education, Dean Lucy Diggs Slowe. Her Truth and Service provides insight into Slowe’s person and importantly introduces a new generation of scholars to Slowe’s defiant insistence that Black women matter and deserve educational spaces where they can experience personal growth, alliance building, and joy.”
—T AMARA
B EAUBOEUF -L AFONTANT , G RINNELL C OLLEGE , AUTHOR OF T O L IVE M ORE A BUNDANTLY : B LACK C OLLEGIATE W OMEN , H OWARD U NIVERSITY , AND THE A UDACITY OF D EAN L UCY D IGGS S LOWE
AMY YEBOAH QUARKUME is associate professor of Africana studies in the Department of Afro-American Studies and the director of student engagement at the Center for Women, Gender, and Global Leadership at Howard University. She is an editor of the Black Lives in the Diaspora: Past / Present / Future series.
Cover design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee
Cover image: Moorland-Spingarn Research Center