U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson on Saturday night challenged Alcorn State alumni to take a more active role in promoting their school and recruiting top black students to attend the university.

“You should not become complacent in investing and supporting Alcorn,” the nine-term Democrat Congressman told about 600 at Alcorn’s annual mid-winter conference. “The minute you become complacent, you lose traction. The competition is going to steal kids with Alcorn on their minds.”

Taking aim at Mississippi’s Southeastern Conference schools — Mississippi State and Ole Miss — he said, “these schools are stealing our top students and our top athletes. Then they look at Alcorn and other black colleges and wonder, ‘what’s going on down there?’

“Give us back our students and our athletes and your money, and we’ll show you what’s happening,” he said.

Thompson said, however, that students he meets when touring schools in Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District and across the state aren’t always considering Alcorn State.

“These are top students, honor students,” he said. “They’re going to the competition, and the (Alcorn) president has to meet certain academic standards, and it’s a struggle, because the students he’s getting don’t quite measure up.”

Thompson also told alumni living in northern states to promote Alcorn and the South to students they know.

He recommended steps alumni can take to ensure that Alcorn provides a quality education to its students.

“Give money, write a check,” he said. “Don’t just support your school when things are good. Give. I hear a lot of people talk and complain. If you’re not paying, keep your mouth shut.”

Thompson urged business people to start internship programs and look for opportunities to promote Alcorn at work.

“You can create opportunities for students to get experience before they graduate,” he said. “You’d be amazed what that experience can do.

“We have people from just about every profession in this room,” he said as he surveyed the audience. “We have doctors. We have a judge in here. Think what that would mean to a high school student at a career day when they meet someone who looks like them and that person is successful and they went to Alcorn.”

Thompson said historic black colleges and universities have played an integral part in the education of African-Americans over the years.

“It all began with black colleges,” he said. “We would not be where we are without them. And for a long time, it was Alcorn or nothing.”

He said he would continue to fight efforts to reduce or eliminate student aid programs, such as Pell grants, which provide funds that help students to attend college.

Thompson also called for support for President Barack Obama’s re-election.

“I never thought in my lifetime that I would see a president who looked like me,” he said. “This is family man. He has a beautiful wife and two beautiful children. It’s a picture of what an American family wants to be. He’s a down-to-earth guy, and people want to make him out to be something he’s not.

“We’ve got to prove in November that what happened in November 2008 wasn’t an aberration. The good thing about a democracy is that we settle things at the ballot box. We need to get all of the students at all the 105 black colleges and get them registered, get them to exercise their right to vote and let them know why it’s important.”