What, exactly, are we remembering when we “Remember the Alamo.”
I used to know the answer to that seemingly simple question. We remembered a heroic stand by a vastly outnumbered group of men, all of them white, who fought for freedom against Mexican oppressors. The men who died in that fight were a “Hall of Fame” team of heroes that included Davy Crockett, who for obvious reasons was a particular favorite of mine (though the famed show about him aired before I was born). Indeed, my father (and no one else) used to call me “Crockett.”
The hero’s stand at the mission turned fortress ended on March 6, 1836. It has been the subject of movies, TV shows, and comic books. It also was implicitly honored by today’s #stampoftheday, a 9-cent stamp picturing the Alamo that was issued in 1956 as part of a new “Liberty Series.” Those stamps honored a wide range of people-including Susan B. Anthony Robert E. Lee, and Alexander Hamilton-and several well-known places-including the Alamo, Monticello, and the Bunker Hill Monument.
Given this “pantheon” it’s not surprising to learn that the truth about the Alamo is much more complicated than, and much more interesting than the myth. Nor – at a moment when some people are trying to argue about the tuber formerly known as Mr. Potato Head—is it surprising to learn that efforts to tell a more nuanced story have spurred (and continue to spur) great controversy.
Fueling the Alamo controversy is a $450 million plan to renovate Alamo Plaza that was produced by a local, business-supported non-profit and Texas’s General Land Office (GLO). (That office is headed by Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush (Jeb Bush’s oldest child), who may well run for governor of Texas in 2022.) Backers of the Alamo plan, which was developed over the course of several years, want to turn the currently small, commercialized plaza into a larger world-class attraction that would boost tourism. The proposed new facility, which was endorsed by the San Antonio City Council, would include a new visitor center and museum that would be expanded not only in size but also in scope.
This could be a seismic shift, because, as columnist Chris Tomlinson, co-author of a forthcoming book titled “Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth” has noted, “the Texas revolt and its signature battle were as much about slavery” which a new Mexican government had banned, “as they were about defending liberty.” Moreover, as Tomlinson recently told a local television station, “The Alamo was largely forgotten after the battle of 1836 and it only really came back into the public imagination after the Civil War when Texans were looking for a new myth, a new origin story that did not include the baggage of slavery.” In addition, he noted, “there were no professional historians before 1880. So when they started digging into the Alamo history, they only looked at what the white people said about what happened and they conveniently left out some Mexican army reports” that contradicted the prevailing myths about the battle.
Not surprisingly, the Alamo redevelopment plan initiative aroused significant opposition in Texas, much of it centered around the fact that the revitalization plan called for moving and restoring the Alamo Cenotaph, a monument dedicated in 1940 that lists the names of those known to have fought there on the Texas side. In late 2019, for example, a group of protestors, some of them armed with rifles and handguns, came to the site. “It’s not a protest, it’s an occupation,” Brandon Burkhart, president of This is Texas Freedom Force (TITFF), was quoted as saying. Burkhart added that, moving the “war memorial” disrespected its history and those who died defending the Alamo in 1836.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, an arch-conservative who, like Bush, is likely to run for governor, also opposed the plan. In an October 2020 op-ed, he wrote: “I am committed to fighting back against those…who want to erase the history of the Alamo battle. I believe the people of San Antonio, like all Texans, want a restoration of the battlefield that will stand for generations so their grandchildren will know that in 1836 a few hundred Texians gave up their lives for Texas, for liberty and for freedom.”
Due to such opposition, in October 2020 the Texas Historical Commission voted 12-2 to deny the city’s request to move the monument. In the wake of that vote, Tomlinson wrote a blistering column saying, among other things, that “If Patrick took a Texas history class today, he would learn that John Wayne’s ‘The Alamo’ and Walt Disney’s ‘Davy Crockett’ miniseries are mostly fiction….Patrick instead maligns the patriotism of San Antonians whose goal is not to erase history, but to celebrate all of the Alamo’s 300 years.”
Back in San Antonio, city leaders have gone back the drawing board. As part of this process, earlier this month Mayor Ron Nirenberg removed City Councilor Roberto Trevino, an ardent backer of the renewal plan, including moving the monument, from a committee overseeing the effort. In a statement, Trevino asserted, the effort to revamp the Alamo site “has now suffered a common fate typical of opportunities of inclusivity, namely the current authority has stifled the…telling a bigger, more pivotal history.”
So perhaps rather than remembering the Alamo, we should actually learn about it with eye towards understanding, even when it’s uncomfortable, what the Alamo was, what it has stood for, and what it might stand for in a more diverse and inclusive world.
Be well, stay safe, tell a bigger and more pivotal history, fight for justice, and work for peace.