Lucy Diggs Slowe: Equal Rights For Women Of Black Women

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“Throughout her professional life, [Anna Julia Cooper] advocated equal rights for women of color...and was particularly concerned with the civil, educational, and economic rights of Black women” (Thomas & Jackson, 2007, p. 363). Lucy Diggs Slowe (1883-1937) Instinctively a feminist, Lucy Diggs Slowe was an outspoken advocate for the empowerment and education of the African American female. A graduate of Howard University in 1908, Ms. Slowe cultivated her passion for gender equality with many leadership positions on the Howard campus. “She was the first president of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the first greek letter organization for black college women” (Perkins, 1996, p. 90). After graduation Slowe went on to teach, earned a Master’s degree from Columbia University and took classes in the innovative field of Student Personnel that would eventually be her career until her death in 1937. The first African American Dean of Women at Howard University, she clashed with many of the presidents at Howard during her fifteen year tenure. As a result of her push back on the paternalistic rules imposed on the female students at Howard, Ms. Slowe’s department was dismantled and she was asked to live on campus to oversee the female population that resided on campus. Despite this retaliation from the University President, Mordecai …show more content…

There were many times during my research for this topic that I became emotional reading the stories of these women who had to endure the pain and the ridicule of people telling them they were not worthy, they were less than, when they knew they were capable of so much and if given the chance they would

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