LYNN EUSAN
Legacy of a Slain Advocate Who Broke
a Color Line – and Changed UH Forever
Though Lynn Eusan would not live to see the diversity she helped usher in at UH, she will be remembered as one of the key faces of civil rights on campus.
In the United States, the year 1968 is often remembered as one of history’s most turbulent.
During the height of the Vietnam War, anti-war sentiment reached a peak, and two assassinations jarred the world: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy.
Amid that backdrop, one of the University of Houston’s first African-American students, the co-founder of the African American Studies program at UH, was set to make history.
In November 1968, Lynn Eusan was crowned the first African-American homecoming queen at UH, making her the first at a predominantly white university in the South.
No one seemed more shocked than Eusan.
Fifty years later, in the fall of 2018, Eusan’s presence would reverberate again on the UH campus when state and federal officials granted approval for the University to offer a bachelor of arts in African American studies, the program she helped create. The first degree was conferred in spring 2019.
“That’s legacy and impact,” said James Conyers, current director of the African American Studies program. “You have people who come through different historical periods of time, and they have an interest in raising different types of questions to have impact, not for popularity, but for equity, and once you start raising those questions about disparity, you choose a different path.”
And so as time was choosing Eusan, she was choosing her path.
But First, a Few Words About the ’60s.
In the ’60s, the majority of UH students – and all the faculty – were white. UH began admitting black students in 1962.
“Integrating was the right thing to do. However, we did not want a Mississippi or Alabama on our hands. We decided to integrate in the summer, when there weren’t as many students on campus. We also had a local media blackout for a week so as not to publicize the event,” Philip G. Hoffman, UH president from 1961 to 1977, recounts in the book “Houston Cougars in the 1960s: Death Threats, the Veer Offense, and the Game of the Century.”
Six years later, Eusan’s moment had arrived. A black homecoming queen had swept to victory, largely due to efforts of those who banded together and had felt disenfranchised during the school’s first four decades.
SHE WANTED TO BRING SOCIAL JUSTICE TO UH AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.
These were “students who no longer wanted to be second or third string and wanted their own cultural identity recognized and respected,” said Gene Locke from East Texas, one of the first African-American students at UH. Locke would become one of Eusan’s dear friends. He would also become an attorney with a storied career, including terms as Houston City Attorney and Harris County Commissioner.
He recalls Eusan’s moment, her ascension to homecoming queen, as a convergence of forces.
“All of a sudden the African-American civil rights movement was full force, followed by a black nationalist movement on the part of African-Americans; the plight of women was now front and center and the demand for rights for women; there was a Hispanic movement, then called the Chicano movement, that would not be denied,” Locke said. “We thought of it at the time as ‘How crazy it would be that a black girl could be homecoming queen at the University of Houston?’”
Locke, Eusan and the handful of black students on campus, were on the frontlines of change on campus in the mid-‘60s, and they ran her campaign with political fervor, sidestepping the “queen” role as a mere social distinction. For Eusan, as one of the first civil rights advocates on campus, it was the platform she needed to become a voice for change.
In their endorsement of the candidate, the Daily Cougar summed up, “Lynn’s election to this honored position will be a symbol representing UH’s defiance of the wall of prejudice, and an indication that educated Americans are moving into a new era of enlightenment.”
As election night approached, Eusan sensed a victory of a different sort, telling the Houston Chronicle: “This was the first time black students on the campus have banded together and really been effective against overwhelming odds.”
When the big night came, Locke was there, on the floor of the historic Houston Astrodome, as Eusan won the title, beating five white candidates.
“The shock that she was actually named, it was fantastic,” Locke recalled.
“It belittles Lynn to think of her as a typical homecoming queen and to think of her election as a typical election. Her election was not the traditional ‘let’s run someone for homecoming queen’ ... It showed the political fervor at the University of Houston. It was not just Lynn and I. There were a whole host of students – African-American, Hispanic, white, international students – people who thought: We are here for a certain purpose, it’s time to make a change.”
With many interests, Eusan wasn’t to be easily summed up. She was by turns: journalist, homecoming queen, activist, advocate, organizer, fundraiser, marching band member and sorority girl.
While she was a charter member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, one of the University’s first black sororities, she was also arrested twice for demonstrating, a common occurrence – maybe even a badge of honor – during the era.
Then came that one title no one asks for, the one that still sends shockwaves.
SHE WANTED TO BRING SOCIAL JUSTICE TO UH AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.
SHE WANTED TO BRING SOCIAL JUSTICE TO UH AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.
Lynn Eusan Park
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
On any given day at Lynn Eusan Park, activity swirls. Hundreds may gather for a walk to end Alzheimer’s disease one day. On another, rally cries beg awareness for suicide survivors. It may be teeming with recreation one day then almost empty the next, a sylvan oasis. Memories and lore aplenty exist. Some claim there’s buried treasure, thanks to the adjacent “Statue of Four Lies” depicting The Art Guys with arms wide seemingly indicating the park as a clue. When a live cougar mascot lived on campus, its “den” was located in the park. One former student claims to have buried his pet gerbil there.
And so it goes at the University’s lasting tribute to Lynn Eusan, the student activist whose life was cut tragically short. Since its dedication in 1976, the largest park at UH, covering 4.6 tree-filled acres in the center of campus, has become the gathering spot for diverse groups, just as its namesake would have surely enjoyed.
“The park is a fitting tribute to Lynn, because the essence of what we were fighting for was complete democracy,” says Omowale Luthuli-Allen, who escorted Eusan the night she was crowned UH’s first African-American homecoming queen. “Lynn spent much of her time in righteous causes in the community, so the park is entirely consistent with every fiber in her body.”
Lynn Eusan
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
On any given day at Lynn Eusan Park, activity swirls. Hundreds may gather for a walk to end Alzheimer’s disease one day. On another, rally cries beg awareness for suicide survivors. It may be teeming with recreation one day then almost empty the next, a sylvan oasis. Memories and lore aplenty exist. Some claim there’s buried treasure, thanks to the adjacent “Statue of Four Lies” depicting The Art Guys with arms wide seemingly indicating the park as a clue. When a live cougar mascot lived on campus, its “den” was located in the park. One former student claims to have buried his pet gerbil there.
And so it goes at the University’s lasting tribute to Lynn Eusan, the student activist whose life was cut tragically short. Since its dedication in 1976, the largest park at UH, covering 4.6 tree-filled acres in the center of campus, has become the gathering spot for diverse groups, just as its namesake would have surely enjoyed.
“The park is a fitting tribute to Lynn, because the essence of what we were fighting for was complete democracy,” says Omowale Luthuli-Allen, who escorted Eusan the night she was crowned UH’s first African-American homecoming queen. “Lynn spent much of her time in righteous causes in the community, so the park is entirely consistent with every fiber in her body.”
Murder Victim
In September 1971, just a month shy of Eusan’s 24th birthday, she was murdered. All these years later, the tragedy is no easier to comprehend.
“It was a shock. It still is a shock,” said Locke. “When the word came back, we were just in total disbelief, tragic, very sad.”
A 1970 UH graduate, Lynn Eusan was killed on Sept. 10, 1971. Locke said she accepted a ride to work from a stranger as she was walking in the rain. Her death officially remains unsolved today.
At the time, police reported that Eusan’s body was found in the back seat of a car driven by Leo Jackson, Jr., who had a lengthy record with 14 prior arrests for rape, assault and armed robbery.
According to Jackson, a hysterical Eusan had assaulted him and stabbed herself, and he was trying to drive her to a hospital when he collided with a police car. Eusan’s niece, Andrea Eusan, says her aunt’s death certificate indicates she was stabbed in the back. Jackson was later charged with murder but was acquitted in 1972, confounding many, including Eusan’s family.
Andrea says Eusan’s death left an indelible mark.
But then, so did her life.
“During this period of time, it was normative that students were the leadership faces of civil rights, Black Power, Black Arts movements,” said Conyers. “You had a Jim Crowe-segregated adult community, and then you had this student community raising questions like ‘Who made this arrangement? Why are we segregated?’”
Looking back, one of the clearest voices was Eusan’s.
In 1967, addressing a disconnect felt on campus, Eusan helped fellow students Dwight Allen and Locke organize the multi-racial Committee on Better Race Relations to promote harmony among UH students.
In spring 1968, Eusan, as part of Afro- Americans for Black Liberation, which replaced COBRR, presented a list of demands to Hoffman that culminated in a march on the president’s office.
Eusan led a series of “rap sessions” to explain the needs, including:
- An African-American studies program
- More black administrators and instructors
- Increase in financial aid
- Raises for maintenance workers
Eusan wanted to bring social justice not just to the UH campus but also to the neighborhoods and institutions surrounding it, including Third Ward and Texas Southern University, which were both primarily black.
“There were other blacks here who felt as I did and who were facing the same problems I was. By organizing into a group, we were able to make our problems known,” Eusan told the Houston Chronicle.
And in championing civil rights on campus, Eusan, Locke and their fellow students were instrumental in the new policies and programs that forever changed the face of UH.
“A few very important things that came out of that was increased minority and women faculty members, an increase in financial aid and scholarships,” said Locke, “and the African-American Studies program, which is now 50 years old. We demanded that it was created, and it still stands as one of the oldest and most effective programs.”
Eusan’s legacy also includes the SHAPE (Self Help for African People through Education) Community Center, which she co-founded in 1969. From humble beginnings, SHAPE continues as one of the most visible and involved community centers in Houston’s African-American community and has become an organization of international note. Though Eusan would not live to see the broad diversity she helped usher in at UH, she did see fragments of change beginning. An editorial in the 1969 Cougar yearbook summed up the “active year” this way:
“In spite of political and philosophical disagreements, the feeling for the University unites our campus. This concern for ‘our’ University is here to stay ... and it feels good.”
