Black Student Union Homecoming Queen candidates riding in car in football stadium, unknown maker from the United States

Homecoming 1969 was a feat to remember. Until that year, KU had always crowned a white Homecoming Queen. The Black Student Union, dissatisfied with the University’s Homecoming Court selection process and lack of representation, elected its own Homecoming Queen, Lorene Brown, shown in the convertible at the center of this photograph. This act and regal celebration marked the appropriation of white dominance by Black student activists. These students rejected the systematic denial of African history and culture in the general curriculum. Along with several peers, Brown visited university campuses across the United States to study existing Black Studies programs for guidance in instituting curricular changes at KU.