Texas Republicans gleefully canceled an event promoting a book that challenged the traditional narrative of the Alamo (watch report above). The authors say they were censored for political reasons.

Last Thursday, the Bullock Museum in Austin, which is a state-run institution, was set to host a virtual Q&A with the writers of “Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth.” The book makes the claim that Texas’ 1836 war of independence against Mexico – including the battle of the Alamo – was motivated by a desire to keep slaves, which the Mexican government prohibited.

 

Just four hours before the authors were to make their virtual appearance at Bullock, the museum cancelled. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, who sits on the Bullock’s board, took credit for nixing the event, writing on social media: “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.”

Texas Governor Greg Abott also celebrated the censorship, tweeting: “Stop political correctness in our schools. Of course Texas schoolchildren should be taught that Alamo defenders were ‘Heroic’!”

One of the book’s authors, Chris Tomlinson, responded that Patrick, “thinks he has the right to force his myths on others and can’t handle the truth.” He noted that historians have acknowledged slavery’s role in Texas’ revolution for decades.

“De-platforming is what conservatives cry about when white supremacist groups are kicked off social media. They say it’s un-American. Well, that is precisely what they did to us,” Tomlinson wrote on Facebook.

 

Indeed, Patrick’s opposition to the book is dripping with hypocrisy. Last year, he derided “cancel culture” when activists sought to relocate a monument at the Alamo that they say whitewashed history. The monument stayed in place. More recently, Patrick supported a bill that “would have required tech companies to disclose their policies for removing content and to allow appeals of those decisions,” according to The Houston Chronicle.

Jason Stanford, another one of the book’s authors, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed:

In the past few years, the boogeyman for these self-appointed defenders of ersatz history has evolved from a generalized “political correctness” to the New York Times’s 1619 Project and other efforts to center slavery and the role of racism in the American story. More than 20 states have introduced or passed legislation that attempts to prescribe how racial matters can be taught. In Texas last month, Abbott signed into law an act establishing a committee called the 1836 Project (get it?) to “promote patriotic education.”

But the effort to cancel “Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth,” has seemed to backfire. From the Houston Chronicle: “The controversy appears to have sparked greater interest in the book, as it rose to the 28th best-selling book on Amazon as of Saturday morning; Tomlinson said its previous high ranking was 168th.”