Though Lucille Berkeley Buchanan was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Colorado, her name and legacy were nearly lost to CU (Colorado University) history.

Thanks to the dogged detective work of a CU professor and the grass-roots support of students and faculty, this trailblazer is being remembered — and honored — with an endowed scholarship and, separately, an undergraduate essay prize.

Seven years ago, someone gave Polly McLean, an associate professor of journalism, a surprising newspaper clipping. The first black woman to graduate from CU had died in 1989 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Denver, it said.

Buchanan’s graduation date was 1918. But the first black woman to graduate from CU had long been identified as Ruth Cave Flowers, who graduated in 1924 and who later overcame significant racial barriers to become a school teacher.

As university archives, genealogical records, property records and other sources confirmed, Buchanan was actually the first, and her life was remarkable in its own right.

Born in 1884 in a mule barn southwest of Denver, Buchanan was the daughter of emancipated Virginia slaves. In 1905, her father built the Queen Anne house in which she spent her later years. It sat on land her mother bought from circus mogul P.T. Barnum.

Buchanan got a teaching certificate in 1905 from the Colorado State College for Education at Greeley. After teaching for a decade, she studied for a year at the University of Chicago. Then she came to CU. So it was that in June 1918, she became the first black woman to earn a degree from CU.

The moment was historic but sad; officials would not let her climb onstage to accept her diploma.

Afterward, she taught in the Chicago Public School system. She retired in 1949 and returned to Denver and the home her father had built. She died in a nursing home at the age of 105.

CU's German Program announced the first annual Lucile Berkeley Buchanan Undergraduate Essay Prize in spring of 2008.

The prize honors the fact that Buchanan was a German major, and it carries a $200 prize for the best paper originally written for a CU German class.

Source: Colorado University at Boulder