Community leaders in Grand Prairie called on school authorities Thursday night to rename South Grand Prairie High School after local civil rights activist Lee Alcorn.
A friend and colleague, KP Tatum, told the trustees that Alcorn deserves recognition.
“What Lee Alcorn has meant to this city, this region, this state, is beyond compare,” said Tatum, pastor of the New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth. “Lee Alcorn is the epitome of principled leadership.”
However, the meeting had to be abruptly interrupted when Alcorn, 84, repeatedly asked to put his photo on a projector.
Board chairwoman Gloria Carrillo urged Alcorn several times not to interrupt the meeting or to risk the risk of removal. Eventually she decided to adjourn instead, as there were only a few minutes left for the meeting.
Alcorn served for many years as President of the NAACP Grand Prairie Branch and later the Dallas Branch. In 1985 he led protests in support of a black soccer player in South Grand Prairie who refused to play under the school’s Confederate flag symbol.
Alcorn was suspended from the organization in 2000 after making anti-Semitic comments on a Fort Worth radio show.
Grand Prairie school district spokesman Sam Buchmeyer said the district was not considering renaming the high school.
However, a committee is reviewing the South Grand Prairie mascot, the Warriors, represented by an American Indian, Buchmeyer said. The committee has not yet made any recommendations.
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