Restoration of the Alamo could be new front in the culture war as TX fights over portrayal of slavery: Report

San Antonio is embarking on a $550 million project to restore the historic Alamo, but some critics have concerns about how slavery will be portrayed in the changes. 

Updates to the Spanish mission, which was the site of the historic Battle of the Alamo in 1836 during Texas’ fight for independence from Mexico, will include a new 100,000-square-foot visitor center and museum, a 4D theater, as well as a rooftop restaurant, which is being built across the street, the Washington Post reported. The budget is mostly allocated by the Republican-controlled state legislature.

The Post’s headline read, “Remember the Alamo? Rehab of battle site is latest front in culture war.” 

Because the attraction is a source of Texas pride, Republican Jerry E. Patterson, who served as Texas Land commissioner from 2003 to 2015, told the Washington Post that if the new museum focuses too much on slavery, it could put off visitors. 

“If we make it a museum about all the bad things and whatever, nobody’s going to go there,” he said.

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In contrast, some historians argue that slavery should be on display as a leading factor in the conflict, the outlet reported. 

“Slavery was maybe not the spark of the revolution, but it was the underlying tension that could not be reconciled,” Chris Tomlinson, co-author of “Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth,” told the Washington Post. 

The most recent fight about the direction the restoration should take is the proposed statue of a man named Joe, an enslaved Black man who was at the Alamo during battle along with his owner, William B. Travis, who was a commanding officer among the Texas revolutionaries, The Washington Post reported. 

Historical accounts indicate Joe was armed, but the Alamo Museum Planning Committee, overseen by the Alamo Trust, has been divided over whether to include Joe’s statue with a musket.

Some Black community members, like Deborah Omowale Jarmon, who runs the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum, described it as “delusional” that an enslaved person was there “willfully fighting for Texas independence.”

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“If his contribution to this battle was he told the story, let’s show him doing that,” she said. “But the next thing we know, Joe has a gun now and they’re saying he’s an Alamo defender.”

The planning committee ultimately decided not to arm him and instead depict him as a survivor and eyewitness of the Alamo, The Washington Post reported. But, while Republicans want the museum to focus on the battle, Democratic leaders would like to see more focus on the role Native Americans and slaves played in Texas’ fight for independence. 

“The staff at the Alamo have expressed to me that they want to deal with controversial issues, but I don’t think they’re free to do so,” Tommy Calvert, a Democratic commissioner in Bexar County, said. “Much like we’re in a heart and soul battle for America, we’re in a heart and soul battle for Texas, and the Alamo is at the center of that.”

Patterson told The Washington Post that the argument is less about the Alamo and is instead about those who believe that the 1836 rebellion of Texas was about slavery, which he said was candidly wrong. But, he did admit that there are certain aspects of the state’s history that have been skipped over in the past. 

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“The bottom line is for about 100 years, Texas taught, believed and supported a narrative of history that was not completely factually accurate and did not include all players that needed to be included,” he said.

But, historians, like Tomlinson, disagree and argue slavery was a key issue while Texas was fighting for its independence.

“The genie is out of the bottle, they’re not going to be able to put this story out there without people knowing that there’s another version of what really happened,” Mario Marcel Salas, a retired political science professor and author of “The Alamo: A Cradle of Lies, Slavery, and White Supremacy,” told The Washington Post. 

“Eventually, maybe not in my lifetime, but eventually, San Antonio will be ready to give up the myth of the Alamo,” he concluded.