Born into one of the founding Black families of Eugene, Oregon, she was a leader in the city's movement for racial justice.
[2] Lyllye Reynolds-Parker's parents, Sam and Mattie Reynolds, left the American South during the Great Migration in pursuit of employment.
[3] Reynolds-Parker's parents helped found St. Mark Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Eugene's oldest Black congregation.
[5][6] Racially restrictive covenants prevented her family from residing within city limits, so they settled across the Willamette River in the segregated Ferry Street Community, a collection of semi-permanent homes.
In 1966, Mattie Reynolds became the first Black person to seek public office in Eugene when she ran for city council.
[10] She has remained committed to racial justice throughout her life, serving as the honorary chair of the Anti-Racial Profiling Committee with the League of United Latin American Citizens in Eugene.
[5][12] After years of activism, Reynolds-Parker took a job with the Southern Pacific Railroad under Lyndon B. Johnson's affirmative action program in 1969.
[2][5] Hosted and presented by the UO Women's Center, they hold the annual Lyllye B. Parker Women of Color Speaker Series named after longtime local advocate for Students of Color, Lyllye B. Parker, hosts a keynote speaker who addresses the intersections of racism, sexism and other systems of oppression Black, Indigenous and Women of Color face on individual, institutional and societal levels.