Barrow, Lionel C., 1926-2009.

Dean of Howard University School of Communications, 1975-1985; founder of the Minorities and Communications Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Lionel C. Barrow, Jr., was born in New York in 1926 to Lionel C. and Wilhelmina Barrow. He attended Morehouse College and graduated with Martin Luther King in 1948. He also served in the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1947, and from 1950 to 1953.

Barrow attended the School of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin, earning his master's degree in 1958 and a doctorate in mass communication in 1960. Subsequently, he worked in advertising as a researcher, and in 1968 became vice president and associate director of research at the Foote, Cone and Belding agency in New York. Barrow became the dean of Howard University's School of Communications in 1975, where he worked until 1985. He married his wife, Frederica, in 1992; the couple eventually settled in Florida.

Along with his academic interests, Barrow was an active member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and was a principle force in helping the organization begin to promote diversity in the field. He founded the Ad Hoc Committee on Minority Education in 1968, and expanded to also form the Minorities and Communication Division in 1970. An AEJMC scholarship was created in his honor to assist women and minorities in their graduate journalism education.

Barrow was also active in politics, fundraising and campaigning for Democratic candidates as early as the 1960s and as recently as the Barack Obama presidential campaign in 2008. He died shortly after Obama's inauguration in January 2009.