In addition, Slowe created and led two professional associations to support college administrators.

Following her mother's death, Lucy and her sister Charlotte were raised by her aunt Martha Price in Lexington, Virginia.

She graduated second in her class in 1904, receiving one of the two-sponsored scholarships to Howard from the Baltimore City School Board [7][8] Slowe was the first person from her school to attend Howard University,[7][8] the top historically black college in the nation, at a time when only 1/3 of 1% of African Americans and 5% of whites of eligible age attended any college.

During the summers, she started studying at Columbia University in New York, where she earned her Masters of Arts degree in 1915.

[13] In 1919, the District of Columbia asked Lucy Slowe to create the first junior high school in its system for blacks and then appointed her as principal.

According to Slowe’s writings, she defined the modern world as a place where all people “strove for professional achievement and personal fulfillment.” Slowe took major professional risks to implicate sexual harassment against female students by male faculty members.

[15] After advocating for the female students, Slowe's relationship with male faculty members was difficult for the remainder of her time at Howard.

[6] Slowe continued to serve as a college administrator at Howard for the rest of her career, until her death on October 21, 1937.

She was a member of the DuBois Circle, a Black women’s group that met to discuss current issues and the arts.