Community leaders gathered Thursday to hang a new portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the city recreation center that bears his name.

DRC/Gary Payne

Emerson Vorel, city parks and recreation department director, and Cirilo Pedroza, Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center manager, hang a portrait of Dr. King donated by Dr. Simon Allo at the center on Thursday.

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The event came nearly a year after a brief firestorm erupted over the removal of another King portrait from the Southeast Denton facility.

The new portrait will “seal that this is the Martin Luther King center,” said Charlye Heggins, who represents the area on the City Council. “And it can be frequented by all, not necessarily just black folks, because King gave his life for everybody.”

The event was part of the city’s celebration of Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in Texas.

A Denton physician, Simon Allo, donated money for the portrait at the request of a neighbor, Vanessa Sims.

“The community needed a picture, and I was looking for somebody to donate a picture,” said Sims, a real estate agent. “With­out hesitation, he said yes.”

The city agreed to hang the portrait last year amid complaints over workers’ re­moval of another image of King in late 2002, said Emerson Vorel, the city’s parks and recreation director.

Controversy arose last August when Vorel told a group of black community leaders that the city had removed the portrait because Hispanics said it made them feel excluded.

He later retracted the comment and apologized after discovering he couldn’t verify it.

Still, the claim angered many black and Hispanic leaders.

City Manager George Camp­bell apologized for the blunder and said officials didn’t know why they removed the portrait.

Martin Luther King III was ex­pected to visit Denton last Sep­tember to donate a new portrait of his father to the city. But King canceled the visit to take part in civil rights demonstrations in Jena, La.

The portrait installed Thurs­day is a black and white drawing bordered by black matting and a gold frame.

It is one of several images of the slain civil rights leader expected to decorate the center in coming months.

The Southeast Denton Neigh­borhood Association is working to get two other donated portraits approved for installation.

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com .