Remembering Lynn Eusan…
11/11/2018 9:00:00 AM | General
The University of Houston’s first African-American Homecoming Queen
Fifty years ago this month, 20-year old Lynn Eusan stood on the field in the Astrodome as one of the candidates for the University of Houston's Homecoming Queen.
On the turf, she kept asking her escort, Omawale Luthuli-Allen, who won, and he told her she was going to be the runner-up.
He lied, knowing the results and not wanting to spoil the surprise.
Eusan, who stood proud of having run a strong campaign and coming so close to winning, was stunned when the public address announcer revealed it was she who was, in fact, the victor.
She leapt into Luthuli-Allen's arms, and he spun her around as the moment washed over both her and the crowd.
On Nov. 22, 1968, Eusan beat the odds and was crowned the first African-American Homecoming Queen in the history of the University of Houston and the first at a predominantly white university in the South.
"This was the first time black students on the campus have banded together and really been effective against overwhelming odds," Eusan told the Houston Chronicle for a Dec. 1, 1968, story.
Who was Lynn Eusan?
A beautiful and charismatic young woman with a large, sculpted Afro, she was the daughter of Ida Mae and Wilbur Eusan. Born in Galveston County, Texas, on Oct. 11, 1948, she and her four siblings grew up in San Antonio, Texas.
A 1966 graduate of Phillis Wheatley High School, Eusan enrolled at Houston in fall that year to pursue a degree in journalism and education.
When she first arrived on campus, it was a trying time for African Americans. Just a few years earlier, Houston had desegregated, and Eusan was one of just 400 black students on Scott Street.
Helping to desegregate the campus further, Eusan helped found the Committee on Better Race Relations and later the University's chapter of the Afro-Americans for Black Liberation (AABL).
After being named Homecoming Queen, she and other members of the AABL presented the campus administration with a list of demands, which included the creation of the African-American Studies program and the hiring of more black faculty and retention of black students.
"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 Chronicle.
She was a charter member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the University's first African American sorority, and a member of the marching band.
She stood up for what she believed in and twice was arrested for demonstrating. Eusan once remarked that she wanted to be remembered for "the cause of justice and equality for all people in this society."
She graduated from Houston in 1970.
Sadly, she was murdered in 1971, and the case remains unsolved.
Despite her premature death, her legacy lives on at Houston in the organizations and programs she helped develop.
A scholarship fund for black students studying in the field of journalism was established in her name, and, in 1976, the Houston Board of Regents named the tree-filled park on campus the Lynn Eusan Park. The park, at one time, served as the home for Shasta II.
So, who was she?
She was the 1968 Homecoming Queen.
She was a pioneer for African Americans on campus.
She will forever be a Houston Cougar.
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