Texas Museum Cancels Book Event About History Of Slavery In The State

The Bullock Texas State History Museum canceled an event for Forget the Alamo, a book that analyzes slavery’s role in the Battle of the Alamo, due to pressure from Texas GOP leaders.

Museum leaders pulled the plug just three-and-a-half hours before the start time on Thursday evening. Three hundred attendees who had RSVP’ed were turned away.

According to authors Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford, and the publisher, Penguin Random House, the museum administration was pressured by Republican leaders to cancel the event, seeing as it would delve into Texas’ racist past.

Penguin Random House released the following statement: “The Bullock was receiving increased pressure on social media about hosting the event, as well as to the museum’s board of directors (Gov. Abbott being one of them) and decided to pull out as a co-host all together.”

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has not commented on the matter.

However, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) admitted on Twitter that he pressured the museum to cancel the event: “As a member of the Preservation Board, I told staff to cancel this event as soon as I found out about it. This fact-free rewriting of TX history has no place @BullockMuseum.”

Tomlison responded to Patrick’s tweet: “Lt. Gov, Dan Patrick takes credit for oppressing free speech and policing thought in Texas. @BullockMuseum proves it is a propaganda outlet. As for his fact-free comment, well, a dozen people professional historians disagree. #ForgettheAlamo”

Stanford stated in an interview. “If the state history museum isn’t the right place to talk about state history, then I don’t know what to do.”

The book attempts to discuss an oft-underrepresented part of Texan history. Penguin Random House describes the book as a work that unearths truths about racism and forgotten history: “Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos – Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo rebels – scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over Mexico’s push to abolish slavery papered over.”

Article by Elizabeth Letsou