Texas State Historical Assn’s Chief Historian Says the Alamo Was an ‘Insignificant’ Battle and Represents ‘Whiteness.’ What Do Texas History Experts and the Facts Say?

PJ Media ^ | 01/17/2021 | Bryan Preston

[DFG]

This past week, Texas State Historical Association chief historian Walter Buenger made two controversial assertions regarding the Alamo in a story published by USA Today.

Although the battle has become a symbol of patriotism and freedom for many Texans and Americans, like the Confederate monuments erected after the Civil War, the myth of the Alamo has been used to “commemorate whiteness,” according to Walter L Buenger, Texas State Historical Association chair.

The battle itself was relatively insignificant tactically speaking, but it gained recognition decades later in the 1890s as backlash to African Americans gaining more political power and Mexican immigration increasing, Buenger said. In 1915, “Birth of a Nation” director D.W. Griffith produced “Martyrs of the Alamo,” which solidified the myth further by pitting white virtuous Texans against racist caricatures of Mexicans on screen.

“It became in some ways a sort of symbol of Anglo-Saxon preeminence,” he said. “The Alamo became this symbol of what it meant to be white.”

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 1/18/2021, thanks DFG.

[PLMerite]

“It was planted in 1850 by explorer, rancher and entrepreneur Peter Gallagher who owned the property where the Alamo gift shop now stands”

Man, I bet he wishes he’d hung onto it...