Born in Berryville, Virginia, Lucy Slowe graduated from Howard University in 1908. She was the founder and president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the first sorority for black women. She received her M.A. from Columbia in 1915 and in 1919 began teaching in Washington, D.C. She later served as principal of Shaw Junior High School in D.C. In 1922 Slowe became dean at Howard University, and in 1923 she became the first president of the National Association of College Women. She also worked with Mary McLeod Bethune to found the National Council of Negro Women.

Sources:
Notable Black American Women. Ed. Jessie Carney Smith. Gale Research: Detroit, 1992. pps.1031-1032.

Lucy Diggs Slowe: Champion of the Self-Determination of African-American Women in Higher Education. Linda M. Perkins.

The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 81, No.1/4, Vindicating the Race: contributions to African-American Intellectual History. (Winter-Autumn, 1996), pp. 89-104.