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By JOHN HANNA
The CEO of the nonprofit managing the Alamo resigned after a strong Republican state official criticized her publicly, suggesting that her views aren’t appropriate with the historical past of the Texas shrine.
Kate Rogers stated in a press release Friday that she had resigned the day earlier than, after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wrote a letter to the Alamo Belief’s Board of Administrators suggesting that she both resign or be eliminated. Patrick criticized her over an educational paper questioning the GOP-controlled Legislature’s training insurance policies and suggesting she needed the historic website in Texas to have a broader focus.
“It was with blended feelings that I resigned my submit as President and CEO on the Alamo Belief yesterday,” Rogers stated in a press release texted to The Related Press. “It grew to become evident via latest occasions that it was time for me to maneuver on.”
A number of belief officers didn’t instantly reply to electronic mail or cellphone messages Friday looking for remark.
Patrick had posted a letter to the board Thursday on X, calling her paper “surprising.” She wrote it in 2023 for a doctorate in international training from the College of Southern California. Patrick posted a portion on-line.
“I imagine her judgment is now positioned in severe query,” Patrick wrote. “She has a completely totally different view of how the historical past of the Alamo ought to be informed.”
It’s the newest episode in an ongoing battle over how the U.S. tells its historical past. Patrick’s name for Rogers’ ouster follows President Donald Trump’s strain to get Smithsonian museums in Washington to place much less emphasis on slavery and different darker elements of America’s previous.
The Alamo, referred to as “the Shrine of Texas Liberty,” attracts greater than 1.6 million guests a yr. The belief operates it underneath a contract with the Texas Common Land Workplace, and the state plans to spend $400 million on a renovation with a brand new museum and customer heart set to open in 2027. Patrick presides over the Texas Senate.
In San Antonio, Bexar County Choose Peter Sakai, the county’s elected high administrator, decried Patrick’s “gross political interference.”
“We have to get politics out of our instructing of historical past. Interval,” he stated in a press release Friday.
Within the excerpt from her paper, Rogers famous the Texas Legislature’s “conservative agenda” in 2023, together with payments to restrict what may very well be taught about race and slavery in historical past programs.
“Philosophically, I don’t imagine it’s the function of politicians to find out what skilled educators can or ought to train within the classroom,” she wrote.
Her paper additionally talked about a 2021 e book, “Neglect the Alamo,” which challenges conventional historic narratives surrounding the 13-day siege of the Alamo throughout Texas’ struggle for independence from Mexico in 1836.
Rogers famous that the e book argues {that a} central explanation for the warfare was Anglo settlers’ dedication to maintain slaves in bondage after Mexico largely abolished it. Texas gained the warfare and was an unbiased republic till the U.S. annexed it in 1845.
Rogers additionally wrote {that a} metropolis advisory council needed to inform the positioning’s “full story,” together with its historical past as a house to Indigenous individuals — one thing the state’s Republican leaders oppose. She stated she would love the Alamo to be “a spot that brings individuals collectively versus tearing them aside.”
“However,” she added, “politically that is probably not potential at the moment.”
Conventional narratives obscure the function slavery might need performed in Texas’ drive for independence and painting the Alamo’s defenders as freedom fighters. Patrick’s letter referred to as the siege “13 Days of Glory.”
The Mexican Military attacked and overran the Texas defenses. However “Bear in mind the Alamo” grew to become a rallying cry for Texas forces.
“We should be certain that future generations always remember the sacrifice for freedom that was made,” Patrick wrote in his letter to the belief’s board. “I’ll proceed to defend the Alamo right this moment in opposition to a rewrite of historical past.”
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