UO Alumni Rally to Help Black Elder Buy a Home

Decades before Lyllye Reynolds-Parker was honored through the naming of the UO’s Black Cultural Center, she lived in a two-bedroom house in west Eugene with 10 siblings and no running water or indoor bathrooms.

She was grateful for the roof over her head, but that roof was a patchy one. When it poured, it rained inside.

Now, the community she fostered through her 17 years of service at the UO wants to help the 75-year-old get a home of her own, one with a good roof, working plumbing and better sleeping accommodations than a small loft she had to share with many siblings.

Mo Young, BA ’02 (psychology), launched a fundraising campaign earlier this year to get Reynolds-Parker a down payment for a home. Young heard that she was trying to save up to move out of the small apartment she rents with her sister and felt like she had to try to help.

Since March, the campaign has raised more $61,000 to help Reynolds-Parker become a homeowner and reduce her financial stress.

Her family was pushed into that west Eugene house after their Black neighborhood was demolished by Lane County to construct the Ferry Street Bridge in 1949. Because Black families weren’t allowed to rent or own a home in Eugene city limits at the time, her family moved into a community of other Black families on West 11th Avenue.

As primitive as the living conditions were, Reynolds-Parker was grateful she was surrounded by other people of color, especially as she faced prevalent racism and discrimination outside of her tightknit community.

She recalls hearing racial slurs often, not being invited into the homes of white classmates and having her teacher tell her that she couldn’t be a lawyer because she was “a Negro and a girl.”

It was conversations like that one that made her so passionate about being a very different kind of mentor for Black students when she became an adviser in the UO’s Office of Multicultural Academic Success in 1995.

“I wanted to empower young students of color to be the very best they could be,” she said. “And I wanted them to believe they could be anybody they wanted to be. I didn’t have that when I was a kid. I didn’t have anyone advocating for me.”

She was a beloved figure at the UO, known for her nurturing, loving, and tireless support for her students. She cultivated a family-like relationship with students, where her impact extended far beyond their academic life. Countless individuals can share stories about what a difference she made in their lives and many are still close to her today.

When the UO went through the naming process for the Black Cultural Center, a home for Black students on campus, she received overwhelming support for the honor.

Young sees the effort to help Reynolds-Parker buy a home as a way that the community can help make things a little easier for a woman who has given so much to so many people.

“She’s like everyone’s auntie,” Young said. “She’s there with whatever you need: a hug, a meal, a conversation to help you talk something out. She’s got you. She’s home for so many of us.

“Plus, there’s so much tied up in the challenges of Black homeownership. It’s a terrible reality that she can be retired from a career at the UO, but the laws and lending practices are not set up to make home ownership a reality.”

Young’s brother David, BA ’07 (ethnic studies), was one of Reynolds-Parker’s students and attributes his success to her. The way he speaks of Reynolds-Parker makes it clear she was the kind of mentor she wished she’d had as a young student.

“She has this way of seeing you and helping show you who you are,” he said.

Reynolds-Parker made a career out of advising because she found the work so rewarding, and she said that was enough reason to keep doing it for so many years, even if it was not one that led to financial benefits like homeownership.

“It was a payday I couldn’t take to the bank,” she said. “It was my purpose and my passion to help students succeed.”

But Mo Young hopes that the community can do something to take care of the woman who selflessly took care of so many students for so many years. And gift her with the financial support she deserves to have in her family.

“She deserves to feel a slice of the love that she has given to all of us,” Young said.

Donations to the effort can be made through the Facebook page, “Thank you, Ms. Lyllye” or a PayPal account devoted to the fundraising campaign.

- by Emily Halnon, staff writer for University Communications