"First negress candidate for Ph.D. in Iowa," July 20, 1941

First Negress Candidate for Ph.D., in lowa: Lulu Merle Johnson Is One of 8 Negresses to Receive M.A. Degree Here By RUTH MASON Among the candidates for the degree of doctor of philosophy in the University of Iowa's history department is a poised, mellow-voiced woman outstanding among her fellow candidates in one respect. She is Lulu Merle Johnson, the first Negro woman Ph.D. candidate in an Iowa institution and one of the scant handful of American Negro women attaining such a status. Her story is another version of a familiar pattern, the story of the farm girl who achieves distinction for her father was an Iowa farmer. She was born near Gravity. la., on the land which her grandfather had purchased in 1882. Though she and her family were the only Negroes in the community she does not recall that it set her apart in any way. In high school she was the captain of the girls' basketball team, and like most other girls, she served her turn as secretary of her Sunday-school class. After her graduation from the Clinton high school to which she went her senior year, she came to the university and remained until she received her M.A. degree in 1930. Here again she was doing pioneer work, for she and a fellow student, Missouri Allen, were the first Negro women to receive Master’s degrees from Iowa. In this case, however, she insists that Miss Allen deserves credit for being first. "Her name came before mine in the alphabet,” she says. Her first job took her south, a region which she knew by tradition, for her family could recall a slave great-grandmother and tales of southern reconstruction. She became assistant professor of history at Talladega College, a Congregational school in Talladega, Ala. From there she was transferred to the position to which she will return in September—that of assistant professor of history in Tougaloo college, Tougaloo, Miss. Attaining Ph.D. status has not been easy, because of the same difficulty most students have -- getting enough money. A grant from the Rockefeller foundation has enabled Miss Johnson to complete her work during the past year. Miss Johnson knows personally all the Negroes who have received Ph.D. degrees from Iowa. To date, they are eight. The first Negro to obtain the degree was Nathaniel O'Callaway, upon whom it was conferred in 1934. Negro women holding Ph.D.'s are comparatively rare. Prior to 1936, the last statistics available, only 12 American Negro women held this degree. Two of these 12 had gotten the degree at European universities. Miss Johnson feels that her hard work was worthwhile. Deeply interested in Negro education, she insists that Negro teachers must be better trained. "A Negro child coming from the south to the northern or middle-western states, finds himself handicapped," she says. "Both better schools and belter teachers are necessary." She is proud of the work which her own college is doing. Tougaloo has a bi-racial faculty. Such an arrangement offers many advantages to both students and teachers, she feels. Negress A Ph.D. Candidate Preparing for her examination is Lulu Merle Johnson, first Negro woman candidate for a Ph.D. degree. A major in the history department, Miss Johnson was also one of the first two Negro women to receive an M.A. from the university. No Iowa institution conferred a Ph.D. degree upon a Negro student prior to 1934, when Nathaniel O'Callaway received one here. lowa State college gave the degree to a second Negro man two years later. Very few Negro women in the country hold the degree. University of Iowa Libraries