'Forget the Alamo' but remember the battles over its history and legend

Picking up on my short but link-dense piece from last week, Kate Rogers, the recently resigned former CEO of the Alamo Trust, speaks to Forrest Wilder at Texas Monthly.

After why she was forced out, a nickel version of the loss:

[F]or Rogers’ supporters, the forced resignation was unjust and alarming—a vicious demotion of a leader who had succeeded in the seemingly impossible task of forging a rough consensus on the Alamo’s redevelopment, a process long beset by factions at war over issues of identity, representation, and contested history.

Then on her hurt:

“It was a huge loss to me. I loved my job. I loved the work we were doing. I loved the people I was working with.” She said she feels compelled to tell her story because of the public attacks on her “integrity and character” and the “disappointing and hurtful” way she was dismissed. “It makes me very sad because the Alamo deserves better.”

And more from there. 

She interestingly agrees with Lite Gov Danny Goeb on one issue:

Rogers, 56, is particularly eager to push back on the allegation that she had a political agenda. “That’s categorically false, quite the opposite,” she said. “I wholeheartedly agree with Dan Patrick—politics does not have a place at the Alamo. It’s our most treasured historic site, the Shrine of Texas Liberty. And what we tried to do, what I tried to do, was to keep politics at bay on both sides in terms of the extremes.” She said she is a “conservative at heart” steeped in Alamo history from a young age, a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and a descendant of one of the Canary Islands families that settled in San Antonio in 1731. “For me, this history is deeply personal and it does need to be told in a very authentic and factual way." 

Rogers said she got along well with Patrick, who she found knowledgeable, thoughtful, and sincere in his passion for the Alamo—which makes his aggression all the more confounding to her. “Some of what has transpired is probably as puzzling to me as it is to your readers,” she said. I pressed her: Was it really all about a tweet and a dissertation? “That’s the million-dollar question,” she said. She couldn’t talk about the details of her separation, but she added that there were “political maneuvers going on behind the scenes.”

Weird. And, maybe, per the "Forget the Alamo" book, she is not totally in the same camp as Chris Tomlinson et al. (They look at the building's history and other things in a way she may not exactly have done.)

That said, does she actually read Dan Patrick correctly? Maybe Danny Boy thought her take on the Alamo was like his until some MAGAt minion discovered her writings. 

That said, Wilder wonders how much of this is Land Commish Dawn Buckingham, noting how Alamo issues screwed over Pee Bush.

To combine the last two paragraphs above, it's hard to believe Patrick couldn't stand up to anybody he wanted to on "political maneuvers." So, mayhaps she did misread the room.

And, calling it the Shrine of Texas Liberty? Again, possibly not in exactly the same camp as Tomlinson et al. 

Give the whole thing a read. 

Update, Nov. 20: Rogers is suing Patrick and Buckingham, per Chris Tomlinson, because they killed her severance pay deal after she talked to Texas Monthly. And, the suit is in federal court, not state. Tomlinson also calls out Buckingham for a steaming shitload of hypocrisy.