Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of The Texas
Tribune Tribecast for Tuesday, November eleventh. I'm Eleanor Klibanoff, law
and politics reporter at the Texas Tribune, joined this week
by special guest hosts politics reporter Alejandro Serrano.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me absolutely.
Speaker 1: Matthew will be back with us next week and just
for a bit of housekeeping, next week's episode will not
be on YouTube because it will be coming at you
from the Texas Tribune Tribe Fest.
Speaker 2: Where we will be recording audio.
Speaker 1: You can get it where you get your podcast audio usually,
but we will not be on YouTube. We will come
back to YouTube the week after and that is a
panel with a tri cast conversation with former House Speaker
Dade Feelin. So if you don't want to miss that
converse and many other important conversations, make sure you join
us at Tripfest later this week.
Speaker 2: But that's not what we're here to talk about. It's
all Hudro.
Speaker 1: A few weeks ago, you and our colleague kay La
Guo reported on a very Texas political episode, a this
could only happen in Texas sort of situation relating to
the governance of the Alamo Historic Site.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of people have feelings about the ELBM
and a lot of people care about the Alamo, and
we saw this growing outrage start with sort of a
social media post escalate sort of perpetually, very exponentially quickly,
and then the Lieutenant Governor called to the firing of
the president who oversees the board of the manch just
the Alamo, and today that former leader is here with
us today.
Speaker 4: Kay Rogers, thank you for joining.
Speaker 5: Us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the trip cast.
Speaker 1: Before we get into all the bruhaha, which we're going
to sort of unpack for people who either you know,
didn't didn't follow that or sort of at the details
of it, but just start off, like, what is the
Alamo Trust?
Speaker 2: What was your role there?
Speaker 6: Certainly so, the Alamo Trust is a nonprofit organization that
is contracted by the State of Texas via the Texas
General Land Office to oversee the daily operations of the Alamo,
but also to implement and realize the five hundred and
fifty million dollar Alamo Plan, which is the redevelopment effort
that is currently underway on the grounds.
Speaker 3: How long did you work there, because we were recently president,
but you've been overseeing this for several years now.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So I was brought on in the spring of twenty
twenty one, so about four and a half years I
was there.
Speaker 2: And what's your background?
Speaker 6: Interestingly, I'm not a historian by training. I'm in, you know, passionate.
My personal passion is around education because I am the daughter, granddaughter,
and sister of Texas public school educator. So education has
kind of been a thing for me. So I spent
most of my career at AGB actually at the company
for eighteen years. My last post was vice president of
Communications and Culture at AGIB. Then I left the company
and I went to go work for Charles but for
several years helping him with some of his activities, including
the Holsworth Center that support public school leaders and public
school teachers. And then got called by a recruiter sort
of out of the blue about this position at the Alamo.
Didn't know to your question earlier, that the Trust was
even an entity at that time.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: I mean, CHIB the fourth branch of the Texas government
as we consider it.
Speaker 6: Especially when it comes to disaster relief, right, nobody does
it better than.
Speaker 5: HIB, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: What drew you to the job.
Speaker 6: A few things, right, I really was attracted by the board,
just a great group of people.
Speaker 5: My interview with them was really.
Speaker 6: Wonderful, and then I went down to the grounds to visit,
you know. And for many years it's been talk of
doing something with the Alamo in San Antonio. You know,
Sometimes visitors would come and they would say something like
is that it?
Speaker 5: Or I thought it would be much bigger, you know.
Speaker 6: So there's often been this sentiment, not by all, but
by some that the visit itself was somewhat underwhelming. And
so there's been multiple versions of this thing we call
the Alamo Plan that have been advanced over the years.
This one that is currently being implemented is the only
one that has successfully garnered strong support from the city
of San Antonio, Bear County, and the State of Texas.
In the state of Texas obviously the biggest contributor to
the project.
Speaker 2: What when you took that job, did you sort of
understand the.
Speaker 1: Fights that were going on around the Alamo, and like,
if you had to characterize it, like what is the
conflict we are still having over the Alamo?
Speaker 6: So I don't think there's any way to actually know
the complexity of the work unless you're working there. I
knew what I read in the paper because right before
I came on board, sort of at the end of
twenty twenty, there was a big brew haha, because the
prior plan. Ironically, today, on this very day, they're reopening
the Cenotaph, which is the monument to the Alamo Defenders.
And many years ago or so before I came on,
there was a plan that called for moving the cenotaph
from the battlefield storted down the street in front of
the Mangro Hotel, and very controversial. It was voted down
by the Texas Historic Commission, and pretty much there was
a complete reset of the project called for by the
Mayor of San Antonio at the time. So there were
new players put in board at the put in position,
at the board level, at the staff level, you know,
enter Kate Rodgers, and I honestly did not fully understand.
Speaker 5: I don't think there's any way you could.
Speaker 1: I mean, this has been sort of bubbling up for
so long in various ways.
Speaker 2: I mean, what is the issue here, right?
Speaker 1: It's about how we teach the history of the Alamo,
which is so central to Texas's history but has gotten.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, like, what is the conflict here?
Speaker 6: I think there's multiple sources of conflict, right, So one
of those.
Speaker 5: Is the fact that the property itself is.
Speaker 6: Co owned by the city of San Antonio in the
state of Texas. So why do I bring up this
idea of consensus between the county, the city, et cetera.
So the first step in getting any of this done
was a lease agreement that needed to be negotiated between
the city and the state because the state owns, you know,
the Alamo Church and the Long Barrack, the two most
important artifacts, and the grounds behind it, but everything sort
of to the west of that Alamo Plaza included, is
actually owned by the city of San Antonio. So in
order to get this plan moving forward, the two had
to agree. And politically that's not always the case, right.
You have a very conservative leadership at the state level,
very blue leadership at the city level, and so you know,
it took a lot of brokering to get everybody to
come to the table and agree that this was the
right path forward. So I think that's one thing. The
other thing that you mentioned, Alejandro, is it's not that
we don't love the Alamo. It's that we love the
Alamo too much. So there's so many opinions about what
should be done, what shouldn't be done, And yes, that
relates to the story that will be told, but it
also relates to the physical space itself. You know, some
people would say, is this even needed? Why just leave
it alone? Why even undertake this massive project. You know,
other side of the spectrum would say, you know, take
it all the way back, you know, bring back the
original battlefield and its original footprint, which would have been
two feet lower than where it is now. So there's
just very strong views on all sides about all things,
including the cenotaph. Obviously, then you have the narrative and
you know, let's face it, we're living in an interesting
time right now, not just in Texas but across the
country and how we interpret our history and the idea
and again the partnership between the city and the state
actually calls for and the least agreement itself, it calls
for telling.
Speaker 5: Them full history of the site.
Speaker 6: Most people, the Alumo gets somewhere around one point six
million visitors a year. Most people are coming because they
know about the Battle of eighteen thirty six it's you know,
no one would argue that's the most important event that
happened on the site, and it's the reason that most
people come. They want to learn more about it. They've
you know, either watched a movie or read a book.
You know, they know about Davy Crockett, and they want
to kind of unpack what happened there. But a lot
of people don't know that it was actually a Spanish mission.
It was the first of the five missions in San Antonio,
and so there's just this great opportunity to teach people
about out the full history, what happened before the battle
and what happened after, while still keeping the battle as
the central focal point.
Speaker 4: I think, thank you for that reflection.
Speaker 3: We certainly want to get to like all you accomplished
and you know, and reading about you, it's interesting how
you know, you often have press releases in conferences where
you were celebrated for some of the things that you
did in the last couple of years. But you know,
to get to the last company you're talking about the narrative.
There was one thing in particular that sparked a whole
new wave of backlashing narrative, and it's this post on
Indigenous People's Day. Could you tell us more about that.
It wasn't the first time the Alamo posted this post
on social media, but this year it exploded.
Speaker 5: It did so.
Speaker 6: Yes, to your point, for the last couple of years,
there's been a post that reflects, you know, sort of
all the things that are represented on that specific day,
one representing indigenous peoples. Why would the Alamo post about
indigenous peoples? The Alamo itself, the structure was actually built
by indigenous hands, so you know, it was a mission.
There were people being converted in the mission, and the
people who were actually doing the labor were.
Speaker 5: Of Indigenous descent.
Speaker 6: At the same time, we would normally post a Happy
Columbus Day again you know, yes, Italian explorer but also
funded by the Spanish crown to come to to explore
what we know today as America, right, even though we
never technically got here. But that's beside the point. But
given the rich history and the relationship between Spain and
the Alamo, and also the local American Indian tribes or
Native American or whatever you want to call them, it
sort of made sense that we would honor both.
Speaker 1: Did you expect any backlash to making an Indigenous People's
Day post.
Speaker 4: No, what were you doing? Can you take us to
that moment?
Speaker 6: Well, I wasn't even Let's be clear, I wasn't even
in San Antonio when that. So, you know, like most organizations,
there's a calendar by which things are posted. No, I
was not the person who was actually putting the post up.
And I think that the communications director was just following
what he'd done for the past several years, and none
of us were, you know, shame on us. We're monitoring
at the federal level changes within the administration and calls
for not the elimination of Indigenous people, say, but to
really celebrate Columbus's contributions to the country. And so I
think he thought he was doing the right thing by
posting both. I was actually so I went to undergraduate
at TCU. I was at TCU to give a lecture
on the Alamo in their public History department, and so,
you know, I got this phone call. You know, we
took the post down, tried to do damage control, obviously unsuccessfully, and.
Speaker 1: We should say Land Commissioner Don Buckingham, who has jurisdiction
over the Alamo, it sort of tweeted woke has no
place at the Alamo and announced an investigation into this
tweet sort of and then started, you know, blasting.
Speaker 2: Off an email to her supporters like this really became.
Speaker 1: A certainly at least the way it was being portrayed
in the stories like sort of Don Buckingham versus you know,
the woke Alamo. Just from that individual experience, I mean,
what do you see as like the full picture there,
like what it was being missed in that retelling of
how that went down.
Speaker 5: I don't know that there's anything being missed.
Speaker 6: I mean I think it's pretty self explanatory because it
was also public, right.
Speaker 5: You know, these are posts on social.
Speaker 6: Media and tweets about you know, what one side believes
and what you know versus the other. And in my view,
woke is a you know, it's a term. It's a
police political term that is, you know, thrown around a
lot in today's world to describe any number of activities.
You know, I think everything we did at the Almo,
or I did at the Almo. You know, there was
no movement, if you will, to not honor the men
who died, who fought and died there. That was definitely
not something that was underway in the new Visitor Center museum.
The largest gallery is dedicated to the battle. The interesting
thing about it is that, you know, this narrative that's
been being developed to inform all the exhibits and so forth,
that's been going on for you know, a few years.
So it was interesting that this all the sudden became
this flash point. You know, that that all of a sudden,
it's it's.
Speaker 3: Woke, right, And was it just that? Or do you
think there was more to it? Like I think you
said another interview, that's a million dollar question whether this
post was really it? But was What was your relationship
like with you know, state leaders and your colleagues, Like
what were their tensions?
Speaker 4: Like what was the lead up to this? Yeah?
Speaker 6: I mean I think at times there were tensions, not
so much with the Lieutenant Governor's office, but the General
Land Office in particular is exceptionally involved in the project
and you know, wants to have a lot of involvement
in many of the daily decisions that are made there.
Speaker 2: How did that play out, like how did that work
with you? Was there conflict over that?
Speaker 6: I wouldn't say there was ever outright conflict. There were rumors,
you know, but that's hearsay, I don't know that rumors
that the commissioner was not a fan of mine. You know,
we never had an exchange, a conflict, an altercation, anything
of that nature. But there were you know, buzz out
there that you know, she's not a fan of yours.
Speaker 3: So this bubbles over a couple of days, and then
the next flashpoint is the Lieutenant Governor's letter that I
mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, and when he
quoted your dissertation, he quoted like a couple sentences from
I think it's very long.
Speaker 5: I speed read it, very long and very boring, Aleandre.
Speaker 3: But I want you to tell us about it and
why you decided to go down that path of inquiry, because,
you know, reading it, in hindsight, it seems like some
of the things you you wrote about and believed in
you kind of accomplished, especially when it came to like
treating the historical site as a place where teachers and
students can really learn and kind of engage with their history.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean it might be woke on my part. I
don't I've never considered myself woke. Right, I'm a member
of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. I'm a
descendant of the original Canary Island family, one of them
that settled San Antonio in seventeen thirty one. You know,
my dad was a West Point graduate who served five
tours in Vietnam. I've never considered myself woke, so it's
interesting to have that label placed upon me. Definitely Texan, Texan,
Texan through and through for sure, and so it was
a great honor to be at the Alamo, you know.
So I'm not one hundred percent sure how you know
that characterization got got made?
Speaker 2: How did you come to write to.
Speaker 6: For anybody who's ever written a dissertation, you know that
the selection of a topic can be a very arduous
process because it has to be something so specific that
you can that one person could actually tackle the research
and write about it. So you start out with something
really grand that you think is going to change the world,
and you end up with this very very you know,
minor topic that you spend several years of your life
writing and learning about. So mine was on the role
of US historic sites and museums in supporting social studies
instruction and Kate twelve classrooms. So you have the intersection
of my passion around education. I was getting a doctorate
degree in global education at the University of Southern California,
and so, you know, my research sites were Monticello, Mount Vernon, Gettysburg,
and the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans.
And I really thoroughly enjoyed the topic. And I was
going to say earlier to your question at Alijandro. So
one of the things that came out of that was
I attended these multi day professional development experiences for teachers
that happen at these really well known sites, and they're
all expenses paid. You know, teachers can come, they can
really stand in the place where history happened, they can
interact with living historians who are Thomas Jefferson or George Washington.
Just a really special, meaningful experience. And so we started
doing those at the Alamo. But one of them is
actually to Mexico City for five days of professional development
a partnership with UNAM. You really help teachers understand the
connectedness between Mexican history and Texas history. For some that
might be considered woke. For the teachers, it was a
really rewarding experience.
Speaker 3: And it's also a Texas component right where there they
do like a also development in some of the battlefields here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so there's a Texas Revolution road trip where you know,
again to really understand the revolution in its entirety. So
it starts at the Alamo and then moves on to Goliad,
Washington on the brass because of course the Constitution was
being signed at the same time, you know, and nobody
knew what was happening at the Alamo versus the the
attendees at Washington on the Brasas, then on to San
Felipe d Austin, and then finally San Jacinto on San
Jacinto Day. So the teachers kind of get to walk
in the footsteps of those who fought all of those
battles as part of the revolution.
Speaker 4: And part of it.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you objection to me reading, but
you know, kind of it is like you were really
candid in some of these views, and this was ears
like you know, at one.
Speaker 5: Apparently too candid.
Speaker 1: Just for clarity, this dissertation was written while you were
working at the partially partially at the Element partially, So.
Speaker 6: I mean you have to remember that a dissertation is
written over several years, and so part of it was
written I started the program before I got to the Alamo,
and then part of it, yes, would have been written afterward.
And as you're evolving and you're writing the various chapters,
there's a lot of cutting and pasting of things you
wrote before that's being well, this belongs in this section
or that section. And when this all came up, honestly,
I had to go find my dissertation and read what
I had written, because I honestly couldn't remember, and I
was thinking, what did I write that was so offensive?
Because again, if you've ever written a dissertation, you know
that no one ever reads them other than your committee.
So your audience for your dissertation is largely your committee, right,
your chair and the committee members. And for this in particular,
I was my committee were faculty members at the University
of Southern California who really have no visibility into politics
in Texas.
Speaker 5: So I was trying to explain the environment to them.
Was the point of the section that was pulled out,
and some.
Speaker 4: Of your views as well. Again, I just wanted to
read this for listeners. We said.
Speaker 3: Philosophically, I do not believe it is the role of
politicians to determine what professional educators can or should teach
in the classroom. Instead, teachers should be afforded the autonomy
to make those decisions based on their own expertise as
well as their needs the needs of their students.
Speaker 1: It feels pretty straightforward, right, You're essentially saying politicians should
not play a role in dictating sort.
Speaker 2: Of how this history is taught.
Speaker 4: Is that.
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 1: Did you consider that to be a controversial statement at
the time, obviously not.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a different time, you know, it was a
few years ago. Things have changed. I don't think that
some of the things that are happening today were happening then.
I'm not the only person who's you know, been singled
out in this fashion. It's happening in our universities, you know,
the president of A and M just recently, you know,
I I think it's it's it is interesting that, you know,
politicians who publicly support the right to free speech and
actually argue for the right to free speech, are you know,
sort of saying, well but not not when you write
something that is potentially critical of something we believe, do.
Speaker 2: You feel like that hypocritical of them?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like there's this shift that you're talking
about is sort of contradictory.
Speaker 6: You know, I think you can't be selective if you
if you stand for the First Amendment right, and you
stand for people's right to express their own views, their
own opinions, even if they disagree with you. I don't
think you can be selective in your defense of the
First Amendment. You're either supportive of it or you're not.
Speaker 1: In an op ed, Lieutenant Governor Dean Patrick pulled out
a partner thesis on which you said the Alamo should
be quoting a beacon for historical reconciliation. Do you still
believe that that's sort of Is that how you would
frame that today?
Speaker 6: It's interesting because historical reconciliation is an academic term, right.
So look, there are all sorts of boogeyman things that
are quoted in my dissertation, one of them the Forget
the Alamo Book. I'm not suggesting that I was a
fan or am today a fan of the Forget the
Alamo Book. It just I was trying to explain that
it came out right when I got there, and it
created all of this controversy.
Speaker 5: That was the only reason for bringing it up. What
did you ask me?
Speaker 1: I think that like just sort of do you stand
by the idea that it should be a beacon for
historical reconsiam.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So.
Speaker 6: At that time I also mentioned critical race theory, which
you know is also a big flashpoint the thing for me,
as you know, a person writing a dissertation, most of us,
in my experience, I went.
Speaker 5: To school public schools in Texas.
Speaker 6: I didn't learn about theoretical frameworks until I was working
on my doctoral degree, where you're sort of searching for
a framework around which your research will be based, right
so Colb's experiential learning theory or you know, some of
my classmates would use critical race theory. But I never
experienced in my public school years that theoretical frameworks were
even a part of K twelve education, you know. But
it became this big thing, sort of similar to the
term well, you know, it's it's a label that has
become more of a political term in my view, to say,
you know, I don't agree with this person, you're this,
you're that. You know, so I'm sure that's what was
in my head when I was writing this.
Speaker 5: Again, I had to go back and look at what
I had written, because I had you once you're done
with that thing.
Speaker 6: Everyone knows the best kind of dissertation is a done dissertation,
and you put the thing on your on your shelf
and probably never to be heard from again. The fascinating thing.
So there's two things I want to say. A is
I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who
have reached out to offer their support, you know, letters
to the editor in San Antonio. Friends, I haven't talked
to you since high school who read about this, and
there's a lot of you know, concern, sometimes anger, you
know that this this was not a fair thing. Not
for me to decide that, obviously, but I've also been
floored how many people have said, well, I read your
dissertation and I thought you did, and they'll say, yeah,
I read it, and I didn't really see what was
so offensive about it. I talked to one reporter who said,
it's not even about the Alamo, and I said, I
know it's not, but for whatever reason, it became a
very offensive thing before.
Speaker 3: Three weeks ago. Had anyone read it? Have you received
any pushback, especially in sho.
Speaker 6: No, I've never even had because sometimes the only time
someone might reference your dissertation is someone who is doing
research on a similar topic, right, and then they'll reach
out to the researcher to say, hey, you know, I'm
working on a similar paper and they may have a
question for you. But I've never even had that. I've
never had anyone mention it. So it does, you know
the million dollar question about how all of this transpired?
Also who went and found it and why?
Speaker 2: And do you know who flagged this to the Lieutenant governor?
Speaker 5: I do not.
Speaker 1: How did you reach the decision to resign? I mean
where walk us through that experience?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 6: I was asked to resign, so and you you know,
just like I didn't want to be a distraction.
Speaker 1: To the product the moment you were asked to resign,
essentially being told like the implication there being you'll be fired,
which you're not going to get to that point in
all likelihood. So like, what was that experience of getting
that like order more or less and how did you
come to like, yes, it's time.
Speaker 6: Well, I I was obviously very upset. I really loved
my job at the Almo and I felt like we
were doing good work, you know, so this wasn't anything
based on my performance per se. Right, So technically, even
though the general land office is really the one overseeing
everything at the project. Technically, I reported to the board,
two boards of the Trust and the remember the Alamo Foundation,
and by all accounts, all of my reviews and evaluations
were always very positive. I was promoted in September. I
had a very positive review by the board in June.
So it was a bit of a shock. And it
all happened so fast. You know, within twenty five twenty
four hours. You know, we found your dissertation. You know,
the language is very concerning, and I think here's the
part that I can understand why they said that you
just can't do this job, because it sounded like I
was being critical of the legislature in the in what
I wrote, And the legislature is the largest donor, they're
the funder of the project, and so I could see
how we can't have someone running this project who sounds
ungrateful or critical of the largest donor to the project.
So that part I understood. It just all happened so fast.
So I really didn't have a lot of time to
process what was happening because there was you know, we
found your dissertation. The next morning. You know, we're going
to you need to resign now it's on X, you know,
and I really was just reeling from the whole experience
because it was so sudden.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the beginning of the conversation, when we were
talking about Indigenous people say posts, you mentioned something about
how maybe you or others could have paid more attention
to the federal government. You also mentioned, when I was
about to read the pastes that perhaps you're too candidate.
Speaker 4: Do you have regrets through any of this? Like, how
how do you feel? Now?
Speaker 6: That's a great question, and it probably changes a little
bit every day.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: I feel like this week, I'm just now kind.
Speaker 6: Of getting my feet under me and starting to think
about the future and what I'm going to do next
and how I can still contribute and so forth. Of course,
when this all came out, I thought, well, gosh, I
wish I hadn't written that, But I went back read
it and it probably was what was in my heart
at the time. I didn't really know the Lieutenant Governor
well before I took this project on, you know, never
had a you know, tense working relationship with him. I
found him to be very supportive and his love of
the I'll know to be quite genuine. So I, like
I said, for me, it was mostly just a huge
surprise and very upsetting.
Speaker 4: Do you still believe some of the things you've written.
Speaker 5: I do believe that teachers should be treated like professionals.
I do. I mean how could I not.
Speaker 6: I mean, my older sister, you know, is now an
administration but one of the finest educator educators I've ever known,
and given my background, I think it's one of the
hardest jobs that anyone can possibly have because it requires
so much patience and creativity and you know, how are
you going to bring an individual topic to life to
you know, spark curiosity and all these very diverse young people.
And it's becoming a harder job in today's world.
Speaker 5: So I obviously have.
Speaker 6: A bias towards, you know, not over prescribing what teachers
can and should do in the classroom. But that's a
personal bias that I acknowledge, and not everyone feels that way.
Speaker 1: And I mean you've sort of we've alluded to like
things have changed, things are shifting, our political moment is
changing all of that. I mean, as someone who was
sort of inside the government to a certain extent, I mean,
how do you feel like that shift in Texas has
impacted things like, you know, who gets to keep their job,
how we tell history. I mean, have you felt that
shift even since you joined in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 6: Yes, for sure I felt it, and I think, you know,
moving forward over the evolution of the script and ultimately
what goes on the text panels in the new museum,
there will be continued debate over that. As I mentioned,
you know, there is a document that was created by
what was called the Alamo Citizen's Advisory Committee, which was
people appointed by city council members in San Antonio to
create this document called the Vision and Guiding Principles, and
it was a very high level document, but basically to
maintain a commitment to telling all the stories of the Alamo,
not shying away from those topics that can be uncomfortable,
like what was the role of slavery in the Texas Revolution?
You know, how will they tackle that? I don't know
the answer to that, obviously, but I strongly feel there
will be continued debate over it. You know, I was
having a conversation on the way up here. You know,
like I said, I've just been floored by the number
of people who have reached out and this was a
person who's a major donor to many things in San
Antonio and beyond, and they're very involved.
Speaker 5: In higher education.
Speaker 6: And you know, he was sort of saying like, it'll
be interesting to see how all this happens, because while
you know, you have politicians now wanting to sort of
say what can and should be talked about on our
college campuses, private donors don't necessarily feel that way. Now,
whether they have enough a big enough voice with the
dollars they contribute to actually make a difference, I don't know.
I also, I think people are scared. You know, I'm
older obviously than the two of you, but I didn't
live through the McCarthy era in this country.
Speaker 5: This felt like a little bit of a witch hunt
to me. That's scary.
Speaker 6: You know, this is the United States of America. We're
not supposed to do things like that. We read about
things like that that happened in you know, in other places,
but that's not supposed to happen here.
Speaker 3: And were you ever scared during your tenure? Did you
ever think like, I'm kind of overseeing this massive project.
It's kind of like a mind field politically speaking, because
a lot of people have strong feelings about it, Like
did you did ever occur to you like I could
be targeted one day?
Speaker 7: Well, clearly I wrote it in my desperation, not really,
because I always felt like I had the strong support
of the board, so I really didn't see myself as
that vulnerable.
Speaker 5: But obviously I was wrong.
Speaker 1: You talk about I mean the fear of you know, politicization,
fear that people feel like they could lose their job
over things like this. There's obviously some degree of fear
on the other side right that the like, what do
you think, what is your sense of why some of
our elected officials are so fearful of other parts of
this story being told or the battle not being centered, Like,
what is your understanding of what the concern is there?
Speaker 6: I think that's a very good question, because I in
my job, I saw the extremes on both sides, and
you know, I will say so so presentism is a
very dangerous thing in my view. This is just Kate's opinion,
but that means placing values of people living here in
America in twenty twenty five on men who lived a
couple hundred years ago. They were men of their time,
they were flawed, We're all flawed, but doesn't diminish the
contributions that they made. And I feel very strongly about that.
I mean, I think, you know, we can embrace Thomas Jefferson,
for example, on all of his complexity. The same with
George Washington, you know, he We don't have to take
away one person's history in order to bring forward the
stories of people that are lesser known. So one big
flash point that I think you know speaks to that
is around the role of slavery in the Texas Revolution.
I think it was a factor in Texas in eighteen
thirty six. The truth is is slavery was a pretty small,
especially chattel slavery a pretty small institution in Texas at
the time of the revolution. It grew exponentially after the revolution.
Were all one hundred and eighty nine men inside the
Alamo fighting for exactly the same thing. I don't know
how you could possibly say that, because you don't know
what was in their hearts and minds. And there were
known abolitionists inside the Alamo as well as William B.
Travis who brought a slave with him, so it's it
was more complicated. What I find troubling is that there
seems to be no room for nuance in history.
Speaker 5: It's either this or that, right, you're good or you're bad.
Speaker 6: And that's problematic because even at that time in Texas
and Mexico, views about slavery were changing dramatically about you know,
how these men ended up here and how they were
going to make a viable economy in this in this
state that both Spain and men Mexico had been unsuccessful
in settling prior to the arrival of the Texans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I mean, that's I think the lack of nuance.
And I think you could argue that is happening on
both sides, Like that's not right.
Speaker 2: My Greetical Party does not own lack of nuances. Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 1: But it is sort of at the root of a
lot of this, it seems like, and and.
Speaker 6: I agree with you one hundred percent that history is
you know, Winston Churchill said it.
Speaker 5: History is messy.
Speaker 6: It's complicated, but he also said you have to know
it in order to lead, in order to ensure a
brighter future for any country.
Speaker 5: But it is messy, right.
Speaker 6: But I think what people are afraid of is that
you're somehow going to suggest that the men who who
who laid it all on the line, they lost their
lives for what they believed in. They're going to somehow
suggest that they didn't have courage or they weren't brave
in that moment. I don't think you have to do
that to also talk about, you know, what was happening
around views on slavery at that time. You see what
I'm saying, you can still be brave in eighteen thirty
six in Texas and a proud Alamo defender and also
think that in order to develop Texas, cotton has got
to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like you're like you're saying like people
who come to the Almo can sit with that. You
sort of believe that people who come here can sit
with that reality that these people did these you know,
very noble thing and also had a complicated backstory for
the time or not even for the time.
Speaker 6: I think people can. I think people can. And you
know that's the role of museums. Museums are considered a
very credible institution in this country more than elected officials
or politicians. They are trusted more than the government. So
you have huge responsibility. But your responsibility is not to
judge or to tell the visitor what to think. Your
responsibility is to present the information in a very factual
and compelling way and let the visitor make their own decisions,
because every visitor brings to the Alamo their own set
of values, their own past experiences, their own personal history,
and all that is going to play into how they
experience it. What we wanted, what I wanted was for
everybody to be able to see themselves in the story
of the Alamo, and I think a lot of museums
try to accomplish that.
Speaker 4: Do you think anything accomplishing your ten year got closer
to that.
Speaker 6: I'm very proud of the work that we did, especially
around our education.
Speaker 5: Programming Blundee Center, the new.
Speaker 6: Education Center, which by the way, wasn't even paid for
by the state. That was all private dollars that were raised.
And yes, the state is the largest and most generous donor.
None of this would be happening without that, without the
Lieutenant governor, without the legislature.
Speaker 5: But my team and I did raise ninety million.
Speaker 6: Dollars privately to support the project as well, and the
ED Center is one hundred percent funded privately, and I
you know, hope that it remains a place where school children,
you know, have a place to call their own if
the Alamo teachers can participate in robust programming. Social studies
is such an important subject, but it's often overlooked because
it's not tested in the early grades in our schools.
But it's the subject where you're supposed to learn how
to participate in a democracy.
Speaker 2: So what comes next for you? What's sort of the
next chapter?
Speaker 5: Great question?
Speaker 6: Like I said, I think I've just you know, I
sort of feel like I got you know, punched in
the stomach. Took me a little while to get my
breath back. I'm starting this week to kind of turn
that corner and think about what's next. Obviously, you know,
I hope to continue my passion for serving the community,
for making a difference, for leaving you know, the world
a better place than it was when I when I
when I got there. I like to build things. The
complexity of this project did not scare me, and so
who knows, hopefully, hopefully there's God has a path for
me out there.
Speaker 3: Might you build a lawsuit related to your.
Speaker 5: I don't know about that. I don't know about that.
Speaker 6: I would I would like to look to the future
rather than dwelling on the past or what happened to
me other than you know, I think that people would
be happier if I didn't talk about all of this.
But I think it's important that we do talk about
it because if we don't, I think there's great risk
there and.
Speaker 4: Kind of like to peel back to current. Maybe we
could end on this.
Speaker 3: You know, it was interesting, but when he texted me,
we had been communicating trying to set this up, and
the first interview fell apart, but then the second time.
Speaker 4: Both times he texted me, I'm ready to speak out.
Speaker 3: What On a final note, what does Kate Rogers want
to say?
Speaker 6: What do I want to say? I want to say.
You know that I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the ALMO.
Speaker 5: I learned a lot. I'm deep in my own knowledge
of Texas history. I got to work.
Speaker 6: Alongside a great team accomplishing great things together.
Speaker 5: That's kind of a unique thing.
Speaker 6: You don't always get that in your professional life, where
you just really have this team that jives and works
well together and you're taking on this big project. So
that was very rewarding to me. Secondly, I you know,
I do think that we all should not.
Speaker 5: Look the other way. That this is the US.
Speaker 6: And this is not China or Russia or any place else,
and we're supposed to be able to say what we think,
We're supposed to be able to disagree.
Speaker 5: With one another.
Speaker 6: And I think it's important that we all pay attention
to that, because I think, you know, some big shifts
in world history have happened when people chose to stay
silent or to look the other way.
Speaker 1: Kate Rogers, formerly of the Alamo Trust, thank you so
much for joining us. Thank you, Alejandro, thank you as well.
That is it for this week's episode of the trib Cast.
You can get all episodes wherever you get your podcasts
or on YouTube, except as a reminder next week's episode,
because we'll be later this week at trib Fest. Make
sure you can still get tickets if you're interested. Open
Congress on Saturday is open to the public and free.
Our producers are Rob and Chris, and we will see
you next week.