She was barred from the dorms, but trailblazing historian Lulu Merle Johnson now has her own statue in Iowa City

Lulu Merle Johnson was the first Black woman in Iowa to earn a doctoral degree. Now, a statue has been raised in her honor in Iowa City. The 1,500-pound statue is the centerpiece of the new Lulu Merle Johnson Plaza at the Johnson County Administration Building (The county was renamed for her in 2021). When Johnson enrolled at Iowa University in 1925, Black students weren’t allowed to live on campus. She earned her doctorate in history in 1941 and spent her academic career at several historically Black colleges and universities. She blazed a path for Black studies with her groundbreaking course, "The Negro in American Life,” decades before the field became an established academic discipline.