Alonso Perales, born on Oct. 17, 1898 in Alice, was orphaned at a young age, losing his father, Nicolas Perales, at age six and his mother, Susana Sandoval, at age twelve. He graduated from Alice High School and attended Draughon's Practical Business College. During World War I, his stenography skills earned him a job as a U.S. Army field clerk. He moved to Washington, D.C. and worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce, received a B.A. from George Washington University, and earned a law degree in 1926. As a bilingual lawyer, he joined the U.S. Department of State and served on 13 diplomatic missions to Mexico, the West Indies, and Central and South America. He was an attorney on General Pershing's staff for the Tacna-Arica Commission in 1925-26 and a legal advisor to the electoral mission in Nicaragua in 1928, 1930, and 1932. On June 29, 1927, he announced new law offices in McAllen and Rio Grande City and publicized preliminary steps toward forming a strong entity of American citizens of Mexican origin devoted to intellectual, economic, social, and political improvement. On Aug. 14, 1927, at a civil rights conference in Harlingen, Perales, J. T. Canales, and Luz Saenz, as members of the League of Latin American Citizens, supported a resolution to unify all Mexican-American organizations, an action that led to the founding of the League of United Latin American Citizens on February 17, 1929. He became a prominent civil rights leader through LULAC and through hundreds of essays, speeches, newspaper articles, and three books. He died in San Antonio on May 9, 1960 and was buried in Collins Cemetery next to his mother. In 1977, San Antonio's Edgewood ISD dedicated Alonso S. Perales Elementary School.