Despite the constant tension with male leaders of Howard University as well as the general racism and sexism she encountered in the world, Dean Lucy Diggs Slowe remained a light that nurtured scores of adolescents and college-aged men and women throughout her career. Many maintained correspondence with Slowe to update her on the ups and downs of their lives after leaving her tutelage. One such student, Evelio Grillo, needed hospitalization for tuberculous. After Slowe helped him gain admission to a hospital, Grillo wrote June 16th, 1936 to Slowe, "the proof of my gratitude shall be found in the success I hope to make of my life, and the asset I may later be to society." Grillo went on to be a well-known community organizer and civil rights advocate for Black and Brown Americans in California.