DALLAS (WBAP/KLIF News ) – A road honoring a Dallas civil rights icon has been renamed in his honor this week, correcting a 29-year-old mistake.
In 1995, Texas legislators renamed a three-mile stretch of South Central Expressway in south Dallas to S.M. Wright Freeway after the late civil rights leader pastor Dr. S.M. Wright.
Senator Royce West of Dallas’ District 23 authored the initial bill, which was signed by then-Governor George W. Bush.
In May, the city council found out that in the 1990s, council members did not properly complete the paperwork for the renaming, so the signs came down when the new freeway was built.
Subsequently, the Dallas Street Grid Information System was never updated to show the freeway’s new name. “I wondered how it did happen because I was there when they first dedicated the freeway, right on the corner of Pine and Central Expressway,” said Dr. C.J.R. Phillips of St. Phillips Missionary Baptist Church.
During a special meeting on Wednesday, the council unanimously voted to properly rename the freeway.
Senator Royce West was one of many who spoke to city council. The signs have already been replaced.
Wright is the first African American in Texas to have a freeway named after him. He as the pastor at the People’s Missionary Baptist Church in South Dallas from 1957 until he died in 1994.
The firebrand help integrate Dallas in the 1960s and 1970s.
For those in the community he served, the renaming of the freeway is a heartfelt reminder of a man who risked his life to make a difference and create a pathway for others to do the same.
Copyright 2024. WBAP/KLIF News. All Rights Reserved.
