Remember the Alamo? Actually, Texas Republicans would rather you didn’t
An event for a book that discusses the little-known impact of slavery in the 1836 Battle of the Alamo — was canceled in Texas last Thursday amid pressure from Republican state lawmakers who felt that the book was a “rewriting of history.”
The event was scheduled at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, and was supposed to feature the authors of "Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of An American Myth,“ published last month by Penguin, as the Texas Tribune reports. About 300 people were expected to attend.
But the affair was nixed hours before its scheduled start, amid pressure from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan — all Republicans who have expressed strong opposition to the use of "critical race theory” in education system.
“Texas historical orthodoxy has long maintained that the Battle of the Alamo was about valiant Texas rebels fighting and dying to defending the short-lived independence of the Lone Star State from Mexican tyranny. ‘Forget the Alamo’ challenges that characterization, reframing the conflict as at least partly about Texas’ desire to preserve slavery, which Mexico had ended in 1829.”
Any approach that features the determination by Texas to preserve slavery is on solid ground. Remember Juneteenth, when slaves in Texas were at last freed two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, because Union troops arrived in the Conferate holdout of Texas.