Ouida Frances Lowry was the first known student of Native American descent to study, even if briefly, at East Carolina Teachers College. Although her stay at ECTC was cut short due to administrative enforcement of the school’s racially-specific charter, her matriculation and early success as a student helped to reveal the profoundly unenlightened nature of the Jim Crow age. Lowry’s later achievements as a student and as a public-school teacher made evident that East Carolina had forfeited an invaluable opportunity to more meaningfully contribute to her academic development.
Lowry enrolled at ECTC in the fall of 1934 after having completed course work at the University of Chattanooga and Appalachian State Teachers College. Given her earlier work, the assumption was that Lowry was white. However, an anonymous letter sent from Buies Creek to President Leon R. Meadows asserted that Lowry “had no right to attend” ECTC. Meadows conferred with the N. C. attorney general, Dennis G. Brummitt, who ultimately advised Meadows that Lowry should be asked to leave. Meadows inquired whether she might complete the term to receive credit for academic work underway. Brummitt advised that it would “probably [be] better to have her to go home at Thanksgiving and not come back.” Given legal precedents at the time, Brummitt thought that the state could “sustain this action in the courts.” As a result, Lowry’s study at ECTC was aborted in the fall of 1934.
Meadows acknowledged that “the young lady in question is doing good work and seems to be a very fine character.” In response to Meadows’ questions about Lowry’s racial identity, the superintendent of Robeson County schools, J. R. Poole, replied that she is the daughter of Reverend D. F. Lowry of Pembroke, North Carolina and a member of one of our leading [Native American] families. He added that she had been employed the previous year as a teacher in the county’s Native American public school. Lowry eventually earned a B.S. in chemistry and biology at the University of Tennessee, and a M.S. in physiology and zoology at the University of Iowa. She did additional graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, the University of California, Boston University, Kings College in London, and the Weissmann Institute in Israel. In the 1940s, Lowry taught biology at Iowa State Teachers College. In 1942, she married S. David Bailey in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Most of her professional life was spent as a science teacher at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Sudbury, Massachusetts. In turning Lowry away, ECTC both upheld racial prejudices enshrined in law and discarded the opportunity to contribute to the intellectual development of a promising North Carolinian.
Sources
- Brummitt, Dennis G. “Letter to Leon R. Meadows, President.” Nov. 21, 1934. North Carolina Archives.
- Meadows, Leon R. “Letter to the Hon. Dennis G. Brummitt.” Oct. 29, 1934. North Carolina Archives.
- “Ouida L. Bailey.” Rod Library Special Collections and University Archives. University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa. https://www.library.uni.edu/collections/special-collections/biographical-sketches/ouida-l-bailey.
- Poole, J. R. “Letter to Leon R. Meadows.” Oct. 25, 1934. North Carolina Archives.
- Warren, Gene. “93-Year-Old Pembroke Man Proud of Children’s Work.” The Robesonian. December 24, 1974. P. 2.
Citation Information
Title: Ouida France Lowry
Author: John A. Tucker, PhD
Date of Publication: 6/25/2019