“SEIZE IT!” From Civil Rights to City Council, Grand Prairie Mayor Ron Jensen and City Council Recognize Civil Rights Icon Lee “The Legend” Alcorn for His Dedication to the Human Rights of Others.

“SEIZE IT!”

From Civil Rights to City Council, Grand Prairie Mayor Ron Jensen and City Council Recognize Civil Rights Icon Lee “The Legend” Alcorn for His Dedication to the Human Rights of Others. NBC Story: https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/north-texans-remember-longtime-civil-rights-activist-lee-alcorn/4056441/

By Black Texans, Inc.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — August 18, 2026. Carpe diem.

Seize the day.

There are moments when a city does more than conduct its business. There are moments when a city stops long enough to remember the people who helped make progress possible.

Tuesday evening was one of those moments in Grand Prairie.

When Rhonda Alcorn, wife of the late civil rights leader D. Lee “The Legend” Alcorn, arrived at Grand Prairie City Hall with their children, grandchildren, family and friends, Mayor Ron Jensen met them as they entered the building.

Before there was a proclamation, before there was a council agenda item, before the formal recognition began, there was a conversation.

Mayor Jensen spoke warmly about Lee Alcorn—the man he knew beyond the headlines, political battles and civil rights struggles. He remembered Alcorn as a kind man, someone who would stop, speak and take the time to engage him in conversation.

Later, when the proclamation honoring Alcorn came before the City Council, Jensen publicly shared some of what he had already told Rhonda privately.

Then, after the proclamation had been approved and it was time to take photographs with the family, Jensen turned toward Alcorn’s children and grandchildren and offered them a challenge that seemed to capture the meaning of the entire evening:

“Your father paved the way for many people. He paved the way for you. Seize it!”

SEIZE IT.

Two words.

But those two words could almost serve as the final chapter of Lee Alcorn’s civil rights story—and the opening chapter for the generations coming behind him.

To “seize the moment” is to recognize the opportunity before you and act while the opportunity is present. It echoes the ancient Latin phrase carpe diem: seize the day. Do not simply admire what yesterday’s generation accomplished. Take hold of what their sacrifices have made possible today.

That was Lee Alcorn’s life.

And now that is the challenge of his legacy.

HE PAVED THE WAY. NOW SEIZE IT. Link: https://texasmetronews.com/127296/remembering-civil-rights-activist-lee-alcorn/

For decades, Lee Alcorn fought to create opportunities that he himself had once been denied.

Some remember him for the battle over the Confederate flag at South Grand Prairie High School.

Others remember him as the founder and first president of the Grand Prairie NAACP.

Across Texas, many remember his NAACP leadership and his presence during some of the state’s most painful civil rights moments—including the aftermath of the 1998 dragging murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper.

But there is another part of the Alcorn story that deserves to be remembered.

Lee Alcorn was not only a civil rights activist. He was a public servant.

In 1990, he served a term on the Grand Prairie City Council.

So when the City Council unanimously approved a proclamation honoring the legacy of former Council Member D. Lee Alcorn Tuesday night, the city was not simply honoring an activist who had challenged government from the outside.

It was honoring a man who had also walked inside government, taken a seat at the table and worked to make that government more responsive to people who had historically been left out.

James Kellum became the first Black person elected to the Grand Prairie City Council when he took office in 1979. Alcorn became part of the generation that followed—men and women who understood that the struggle for civil rights had to move from marches and mass meetings into voting booths, school districts, council chambers, boardrooms and the institutions where decisions were actually made.

But Alcorn’s journey to that council chamber had begun decades earlier.

FROM SEGREGATED TEXAS TO SERVICE

Born in Ledbetter, Texas, Alcorn moved to Rockdale as a small child and attended the segregated Aycock schools, graduating in 1956.

He later recalled teachers who demanded excellence from their students even when segregation denied those same students equal resources.

Books were often secondhand. Equipment was inadequate. Courses and educational opportunities available to white students were not always available to Black students.

Yet Alcorn learned an enduring lesson:

Link: https://texasmetronews.com/127296/remembering-civil-rights-activist-lee-alcorn/ What society refuses to give you does not have to determine what you become.

After high school, he hitchhiked to Dallas with two friends and decided to take the Air Force examination. Of the three, Alcorn was the one who passed.

He entered the United States Air Force and served four years as a cryptologist, holding a top-secret security clearance and serving in locations that included the Pacific Islands and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The young man educated in segregated Texas soon discovered educational gaps between himself and some of his fellow servicemen, particularly in mathematics and science.

So he did what would become characteristic of his life.

He went to work.

He bought books.

He studied.

He taught himself what segregation had failed to teach him.

That determination eventually led him into radiology. After his military service, Alcorn studied radiologic technology through the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and later pursued additional radiology-related education at Mountain View College in Dallas.

He spent more than 25 years in the profession and ultimately retired as Radiology Manager at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Dallas, overseeing its radiology department.

But retirement from a profession did not mean retirement from purpose.

FROM CAREER TO CIVIL RIGHTS

Alcorn increasingly turned his attention toward the unfinished business of equality.

He founded and served as the first president of the Grand Prairie branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, spending more than a year gathering the people and resources necessary to establish the organization.

That work was neither glamorous nor easy.

It meant meetings.

Phone calls.

Organizing.

Fundraising.

Convincing people that change was possible.

And then doing the difficult work necessary to make change happen.

His leadership eventually extended beyond Grand Prairie. He became president of the Dallas NAACP and served as first vice president of the Texas State Conference of the NAACP.

Alcorn remained a prominent civil rights leader and, in 2000, organized the Coalition for the Advancement of Civil Rights.

His activism reached into virtually every arena where he believed African Americans and other historically excluded citizens deserved a fair opportunity.

He fought for political representation.

He challenged Grand Prairie’s at-large election system and helped push the city toward single-member districts so communities could have more responsive representation.

He served as an election precinct judge.

He served on the board of the Dallas American Civil Liberties Union.

He challenged the presence of the Confederate flag at South Grand Prairie High School.

And when construction of the American Airlines Center presented a massive economic opportunity in Dallas, Alcorn worked with developers and city officials on a Fair Share Agreement designed to ensure that minority- and women-owned businesses had meaningful access to contracts associated with the project.

For Lee Alcorn, civil rights were never confined to one definition.

Voting rights were civil rights.

Education was civil rights.

Economic opportunity was civil rights.

Representation was civil rights.

Human dignity was civil rights.

And sometimes civil rights meant standing outside City Hall demanding change.

Sometimes it meant walking inside City Hall and taking a seat.

FROM CIVIL RIGHTS TO CITY COUNCIL

That is what made Tuesday evening’s ceremony particularly meaningful.

Decades after Lee Alcorn served on the Grand Prairie City Council, his wife, children and grandchildren stood inside a newer Grand Prairie City Hall and watched the city formally honor his life.

And they stood in a Grand Prairie that looks different from the city in which Alcorn began his fight decades ago.

Black and Latino residents now hold seats and positions of civic leadership in numbers that earlier generations could scarcely have imagined.

For those who knew Lee and understood his faith, it was easy to imagine him looking down from Heaven and seeing that the work had not been in vain.

His wife stood holding the proclamation.

His children and grandchildren surrounded her.

Civil rights leaders came to witness the moment.

And above them were the words:

CITY OF GRAND PRAIRIE.

There was something beautifully circular about it.

A Black child educated under segregation grew into an Air Force cryptologist.

The cryptologist became a healthcare professional.

The healthcare professional became a civil rights organizer.

The organizer became a councilman.

The councilman became an elder.

And the elder became a legend whose family returned to City Hall to hear the city say:

We remember.

Alcorn’s work eventually earned him recognition far beyond Grand Prairie. His legacy includes induction into the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, Alabama, along with numerous honors recognizing his community service, civil rights advocacy and commitment to political and economic opportunity.

Yet perhaps his greatest legacy cannot be placed on a plaque, framed in a proclamation or engraved on an award.

It can be seen in the opportunities available to his children, his grandchildren and the people who came behind him.

That is why Mayor Jensen’s words carried such weight.

He paved the way.

Now:

SEIZE IT.

A LEGACY BEYOND A LIFETIME

Lee Alcorn understood something fundamental about the civil rights movement:

A road is useless if the next generation refuses to walk it.

He did not fight simply so his name would be remembered.

He fought so somebody else could go farther.

So another child could receive a better education.

So another family could participate fully in the economy.

So another neighborhood could elect someone who understood its concerns.

So another entrepreneur could compete for a contract.

So another generation could enter rooms their parents and grandparents had once been denied.

That is the responsibility attached to inheritance.

The generation before us may open the door.

But somebody has to walk through it.

They may build the bridge.

Somebody has to cross it.

They may pave the road.

Somebody has to travel it.

They may create the opportunity.

Somebody has to seize it.

From segregated schools in Rockdale to military service, from hospital radiology rooms to NAACP meetings, from civil rights demonstrations to the Grand Prairie City Council chamber, D. Lee “The Legend” Alcorn spent a lifetime working for the dignity and human rights of others.

And on Tuesday night, his family stood in that council chamber as witnesses that the work of one life can continue speaking after that life has ended.

Thank you to Mayor Ron Jensen and the Grand Prairie City Council for recognizing the public service and civil rights legacy of D. Lee Alcorn and for standing with his family on this historic evening.

And to his children, his grandchildren and every generation that inherits the roads Lee Alcorn and countless others struggled to build, the charge from Grand Prairie City Hall could not have been clearer:

The way has been paved.

The door has been opened.

The opportunity is before you.

SEIZE IT!

Carpe diem.

May the legacy of D. Lee “The Legend” Alcorn live far beyond a lifetime. - Pastor Kyev P. Tatum, Sr.