EDITOR'S NOTE: A video interview with Eugene Locke is available.

By Francine Parker
Staff writer

It wasn’t a dream but rather the reality of campus life for black students in the late 1960s that eventually led to the creation of the University of Houston’s African American Studies (AAS) Program.

The reality included an overwhelming white student population, no black faculty or administrators and an exclusivity among certain student organizations, according to some AAS co-founders.

One of them, Eugene Locke, now a partner in the Houston law firm of Andrews and Kurth, recalled the frustration many black students felt at that time.

“From the very first day, I never felt that I was a student at the university. I felt that I was a black student who was being allowed to attend the university,” said Locke, who graduated with honors with a bachelor’s degree in 1969.

He says he believes that black and white students at UH shared a sense of uneasiness at a time when desegregation was taking place in universities across the nation.

“For many white students, it was almost an ignoring of the fact that this opening of the doors had happened,” he said. “For other white students, it was an opportunity to broaden their horizons, be a part of the changing society.”

Michelle Barnes, who graduated from UH in 1970, also felt the uneasiness. Founding director and acting executive director of the Community Artists’ Collective, Barnes said she came to UH to graduate, not to protest.

“I was there to get the credentials that would position me to be able to contribute to the livelihood of my family,” Barnes said. “I didn’t expect to be in college during an era of such turmoil and upheaval. I was completely caught off guard.”

Barnes joined Locke and other students working to change the conditions of black Americans on campus.

Other UH student leaders included the late Lynn Eusan, who in 1969 became the first black student to be crowned the university’s homecoming queen, and DeLloyd Parker, executive director of Third Ward’s S.H.A.P.E. (Self-Help for African People Through Education) Community Center.

The students formed the African Americans for Black Liberation in effort to increase minority student enrollment and minority faculty and to improve race relations at UH and its surrounding community.

In 1969, the committee submitted a list of 10 demands to Philip G. Hoffman, who was the university’s president at the time.

Topping the list was the development of black history classes and the hiring of black faculty and administrators, Locke remembered.

“How do you have a university that doesn’t have any classes that address the history and the culture of a significant portion of the population, i.e., African Americans. How is it that you teach history from a Eurocentric viewpoint without understanding that there are other people who live in the world besides Europeans?” Locke asked.

After a series of protests and retreats with student leaders, university administrators agreed to offer black history classes.

“I take great pride, as I’m sure the entire university does, in the African American Studies Program,” Hoffman said recently. “The program continues to demonstrate its relevance and viability.”