Lynn Eusan

Three years after Eusan's death, the University of Houston Board of Regents named a park in her honor, called the Lynn Eusan Park. Until the 1980s, the park was home to the university's live mascot, a cougar named Shasta, who resided in a cage. In 2013, the university built a modern stage for the park equipped with lights and a sound system. The park is a hub of student life and activity at the university.

Jackson had been arrested 14 times prior to the incident for charges including rape and armed robbery. Jackson was charged with Eusan's murder, but in 1972, a jury acquitted him. Since then, no one has been charged in connection with Eusan's death.

After graduating from UH in 1970, Eusan got a job reporting with Voice of Hope, the media arm of HOPE Development, Inc., in the Fifth Ward. She contributed to Black Enterprise magazine and worked as a secretary. Eusan planned to attend graduate school in North Carolina. The last time anyone saw Eusan, she was waiting at a bus stop in windy, rainy weather on the evening of September 10, 1971.

On September 10, 1971, a car driven by Leo Jackson, Jr. collided with a police vehicle. In the back seat, police found Eusan's body; she had been stabbed several times. Jackson claimed that Eusan had been "hysterical", assaulted him, and then stabbed herself, and that he was on his way to the hospital.

In February 1969, Eusan and 100 other members of the AABL marched to UH President Phillip G. Hoffman's office and presented a list of 10 demands, which included:

Twice, Eusan was arrested for demonstrating. In 1969, she was charged with destruction of public property for her role in a riot on the UH campus. The charges were later dropped. In 1967, she was arrested during a demonstration for better conditions for children in the Sunnyside neighborhood.

On November 22, 1968, Eusan was crowned UH's Homecoming queen over five other white candidates in the Astrodome, becoming the first black homecoming queen at a white Southern university. The African Americans for Black Liberation ran her campaign. The Daily Cougar, the student newspaper, endorsed her candidacy. She continued to advocate for civil rights and black pride as Homecoming queen.

She graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in 1966 and immediately enrolled at the University of Houston.

Lynn Cecilia Eusan was the first black Homecoming queen at the University of Houston, where she studied journalism, and the first black woman to earn the title at any predominantly white college or university in the Southern United States. Only seven years earlier, UH had been an all-white institution, not integrating until the 1962–63 academic year. In 1971, less than three years after that Homecoming ceremony, she was found dead in the back of a stranger's car. Her death was believed to be a murder, and no one was ever found guilty for her death. A park at the university is named in her honor.

Eusan was born on October 11, 1948 in Galveston County, Texas. Her parents, Ida Mae (Boudreaux) Eusan and Wilbur Thirkield Eusan, Sr., were working class. Eusan and her four siblings grew up in San Antonio, Texas.