Southern Bookman

Book Review: "Forget the Alamo" demolishes myths of Texas battle, examines its racist legacy

"Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth" raises the stakes over America's reckoning with slavery and racism.

The three authors call their book a "historiography, that is, a history of the history."

In contrast with what veteran Texas writers Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford call the "Heroic Anglo Narrative" about the 1836 battle that came to symbolize Texas' war for independence from Mexico, preserving slavery was the revolution's driving force.

After winning independence from Spain, the Mexican republic opposed slavery. Although Texas received concessions from Mexico, settlers increasingly feared the abolishment of slavery, their economic foundation.

The movement for independence gained momentum as more white slave-owning settlers established cotton plantations.

Texas, which later joined the Confederacy after a brief time as a republic and as a member of the antebellum United States, was the only Southern state that placed slavery in its constitution, the authors point out.

With a seamless, conversational Texas style, the book ranges from the state's pioneer history, its days as a Spanish and Mexican colony and the Texas war of independence to the disputes over the Alamo's legacy and the preservation of the Spanish mission battle site as Texas' foundational shrine.

Yet the site, surrounded by tawdry businesses, grew shabby over the years, disappointing visitors who expected a grander experience. 

The resulting conflicts over the site’s restoration close the book. While at times confusing and mired in bureaucratic details, the account overall reveals the national relevance of the Texas disputes. 

Like Confederate monuments, the Alamo was used to support white supremacy. Political leaders from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush and Donald Trump have wielded it as a symbol of American power.

Outsized Texas legends parade through the book's pages, from republic founding fathers Stephen F. Austin, Juan Sequin and Sam Houston to historians, novelists and film-makers who have rehashed the Alamo story.

The writers make interesting the intractable battle between imposing women Adina de Zavala and Clara Driscoll for control of the Alamo site and its preservation.

That led to the site's ironclad control by the Daughters of the Texas Republic. The site's long deterioration under their watch, and their demure fall into corruption, led to the state wresting control of the Spanish mission site.

From the first days after the battle, Texans saw the defeat as a heroic sacrifice for freedom.

After Santa Anna led his army into Texas to quell the brewing rebellion, the battle at the Alamo instantly inspired Texas’ drive for independence with the cry “Remember the Alamo.”

The authors establish that the stand at the Spanish mission was unnecessary, that the men could have easily escaped. But no myth would have risen.

Along with a riveting account of the Alamo, the book details Texas' winning its independence at the subsequent Battle of San Jacinto with a volunteer army under Houston, a stunning reversal of fortune for the overconfident Santa Anna. The book's amusing vignettes about Texas lore include the likely apocryphal story that Santa Anna's siesta on the day of the battle involved a sexual encounter with a young woman named Emily Morgan, "the Yellow Rose of Texas."

The authors relate how the glorification of the Alamo in Texas seventh grade history classes led to virulent prejudice against Texans of Mexican descent. Tejanos recall suffering abuse from their classmates because of the Mexicans' killing of the Alamo rebels.

Over the years, the Mexican contribution to Texas independence has also been erased, along with the deaths of a number of Tejanos at the Alamo. Rising hostility led to the Texas rangers massacring hundreds of Mexicans in the early 20th century.

Outside of Texas, the battle held little importance until Walt Disney produced a three-part film about legendary 19th century frontiersman Davy Crockett, who died at the Alamo.

Crockett, played by the charismatic Fess Parker, is shown gallantly fighting off Santa Anna's rampaging soldiers, swinging his rifle "Old Betsy" at them after running out of ammunition. His death is never shown.

The Disney show, with its catchy theme song, turned into a craze among young baby boomer males, sparking a run on Crockett-style coonskin caps and spreading the myth of the Alamo as a heroic battle for freedom from a despotic Mexican government led by Santa Anna, who ordered the killings of the Alamo's survivors.

Later, John Wayne perpetuated the Alamo myth, portraying Crockett in a jingoistic film that equated the Alamo with Vietnam. Wayne also depicted Crockett dying heroically, never surrendering.

Crockett along with Jim Bowie and commander William Travis are the "holy trinity" of Alamo martyrs, and the book demolishes the myths surrounding them.

Bowie, who came to Texas after a history of fraudulent land swindles, is shown as a murderer and con-man. Suffering from what the authors say was typhoid, Bowie likely died in bed, rather than gallantly rising to battle the encroaching army.

The story of the slave-owning Travis drawing a line in the dirt with his sword and challenging those willing to die in the battle to cross the line  is another key element of the Alamo myth. The book shows that the dramatic story, depicted in both the Disney and John Wayne movies, was concocted by a disreputable character purporting to be a battle survivor.

And, Mexican accounts from the battle indicate that Crockett probably surrendered, and was killed by the Mexican army, under Santa Anna's orders. Some say he begged for his life. The authors say that rather than the glamorous Fess Parker, Crockett was a paunchy middle-aged man who came to Texas after the failure of his political career.

Another key element of the book is Texas' drive to acquire the Alamo collection of musician Phil Collins, who became fascinated by the battle as a child. The book disputes the authenticity of artifacts in Collins' collection, such as a knife supposedly owned by Bowie and possessions of Crockett.

Despite the dubious validity of the items, the state of Texas is committed to a building a $450 million museum at the Alamo site to display the collection.

In a thorough piece of investigative reporting, the book examines the political battles around the plan to renovate the site, led by George P. Bush, commissioner of the Texas General Land Office.

Bush, the son of former presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, at first called for an inclusive view of the Alamo and its history, incorporating viewpoints of Mexican citizens. The political disputes also include demands by Native Americans to preserve an ancient burial ground discovered at the site and African-Americans' desires to preserve an adjacent building where a Woolworth's lunch counter was integrated in the 1950s.

But Bush, receiving fire from right-wing protesters and Trump-supporting Republicans, has turned into a staunch supporter of the "Anglo Heroic Narrative."

That's what the authors want to change. They don't want to really forget the Alamo. They wish for "Remember the Alamo" to have meaning for all of the state's citizens.

 

 

Bruce Springsteen relights Broadway's flame

Lavish production numbers and gaudy show stoppers will return to Broadway soon.

This summer, Bruce Springsteen is the sole light on New York City's Great White Way, a troubadour telling stories and singing. An acoustic guitar, a piano, and that great American voice open the way back for American theater's showcase.

Damn, I wish the whole country could see it.

Springsteen's show, featuring a duet with his wife, Patti Scialfa, runs until September at the St. James Theater. This autumn, bigger, more elaborate shows will return.

Until then, Springsteen is giving audiences an ancient form of storytelling, pure theater.

At his last show at summer's end, I hope he gathers a chorus of Broadway and musical stars to join in a final rousing number, perhaps "Born in the USA" or Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land."

Broadway will be back, thanks to a man with a guitar telling stories.

Virginia-Highland, Ponce City Market celebrate return to public life

Skateboarders, bicycle riders, skaters and walkers packed the Beltline Saturday morning near the Ponce City Market.

The festive crowd flowed past the old Murder Kroger, now capped by a futuristic building and offering a cool bar and a Starbucks with a deck overlooking the walkway.

Joyous at returning to public gathering after the long months of the pandemic's isolation, people streamed through Ponce City Market, many with kids in strollers, and most not wearing masks.

After shrimp po-boys at the Fish Camp and a visit to the crowded Posman Books, my daughter and I headed to Virginia-Highland, where my wife and I bought our first house more than 30 years ago after living in an apartment in Little Five Points right after getting married.

My daughter and I wanted to celebrate a new independent bookstore, Virginia-Highland Books, which had recently opened on Highland near the famed Virginia intersection.

Occupying two floors, the bookstore offered a wonderful selection of books and a friendly staff. The store wasn't crowded, allowing comfortable browsing. I ended up taking home Shirley Hazzard's "Collected Stories."

Sitting in the Perc coffee shop with my daughter watching people sitting at sidewalk tables and walking past on Highland, I thought that those benighted Buckhead residents seeking to secede from Atlanta despised this urban diversity. They wanted to withdraw into a cocoon. Yet Buckhead is part of neighborhoods like Virginia-Highland, Little Five Points and the Old Fourth Ward, receiving economic and social benefits from their vitality.

Atlanta's neighborhoods are connected in a city tapestry. One cannot stand alone without the others.

 

Sandy Springs library's reopening brings rush of new books for summer reading

New books are popping up at the Sandy Springs library, which is back in operation after the pandemic shutdown.

In recent weeks, I've found "Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020" by Salman Rushdie, "Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of An American Myth" by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford and "By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution" by David and Margaret Talbot.

With the library's return, moms are bringing their children to search for summer reading treasures, people are working at the computer station and high school kids are preparing for the fall, when schools are hoped to be back to normal.

I'm looking forward to the possibility of finding other books on my list. I'm waiting for an e-mail telling me about the arrival of Louis Menand's massive history of culture in the 1950s, "The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War," which I've placed on hold.

Critical articles agree that Menand delivers a wide-ranging, somewhat shallow, assessment of artists, musicians and writers ranging from Hannah Arendt, John Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir to Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Elvis Presley, Allen Ginsberg and Lionel Trilling.

The book sounds overwhelming, and it could be depressing to read about an era when the world had such an array of serious thought and creativity, unlike today when poseurs and propaganda dominate.

On trips down Roswell Road from North Buckhead through Sandy Springs to the library, one of Atlanta's most interesting urban drives, I'll wish for the appearance of Susan Minot's new short story collection, "Why I Don't Write" and Shirley Hazzard's "Collected Stories."

That's the game of looking for books at the library; you never know whether to buy a book or wait for it to show up on the library shelves. In the past, I've purchased an expensive hardback, only to see it in the new books section soon after.

If Dana Spiotta's new book "Wayward" appears, I'll check it out. I loved Spiotta's novel "Eat the Document," about a violent 1960s radical going underground to avoid the FBI, but didn't care for her later books "Stone Arabia" and "Innocents and Others."

Spiotta's new book about a menopausal woman's emotional changes is unlikely to appeal to me, but I'll give it a try. That's the beauty of the library.

 

 

Texas Monthly writer Mimi Swartz reconnects with her hometown, San Antonio

I've always felt a strong connection to Texas, although I grew up in Louisiana.

My mother's family has deep roots in the Lone Star state, where she lived until she was 12, when my grandfather and grandmother opened a fishing camp on Black Lake in northern Louisiana.

Frequent trips to Houston during my childhood and young manhood led me to adopt the city as my shadow hometown, along with New Orleans and my real one, Baton Rouge.

Over the years, I've loved reading the work of Texas writers, especially Larry McMurtry's novels and essays.

I was captivated by Dan Jenkins' comic sports novels and books on golf and football. Reading Jenkins led me to the entertaining columns of Jenkins' newspaper mentor, Blackie Sherrod, and the late Gary Cartwright's memoir, "Turn Out the Lights: Chronicles of Texas During the '80s and '90s." 

My canon of Texas books also encompasses noted journalist and novelist Lawrence Wright's "God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State" and the memoir, "In the New World: Growing Up With America From the Sixties to the Eighties."

The proud history of Ronnie Dugger's Texas Observer is one of my journalistic lodestars. My favorite chapters in Mississippi writer Willie Morris' classic memoir "North Toward Home" recalled his days at the University of Texas and as the Observer's editor. The late newspaper columnist Molly Ivins was another favorite.

As a young man, I identified with the ethos of Texas musicians Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker and Ray Wiley Hubbard. Gary P. Nunn's "London Homesick Blues," George Strait's "All My Exes Live in Texas" and Ernest Tubb's "Waltzing Across Texas" are personal anthems.

I grew up listening to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, whose songs "Take Me Back to Tulsa" and "San Antonio Rose" glow with antic joy. Later, I rediscovered their music through recordings and live performances by Asleep at the Wheel.

In recent years, I've followed the music and online piano tutorials of Asleep at the Wheel alum Floyd Domino.

The YouTube video of Domino and his all-stars’ performance of "I Can't Believe You're in Love With Me" with its exuberant musicians and people dancing outdoors helped carry me through the pandemic.

These days, my favorite Texas writer is Mimi Swartz, executive editor of the Texas Monthly, which I religiously read online along with the Texas Observer and Texas Tribune.

I first appreciated Swartz's work on The New York Times op-ed page; sorry, I won't stop calling it that. Swartz's personal essays from Houston portray the city's clash of ethnic diversity, conservative economic values, environmental devastation and artistic sophistication.

Swartz's essay in the current Texas Monthly, "Hello Again to All That," is a heart-stirring tribute to San Antonio, her native city, which she fled as a young adult. In the piece, she touches upon her family's ancestral roots in the city where the Alamo stands, her aversion to the city's oppressive social divisions, and her affection for its restaurants and public places. 

Warm memories of her late parents and her youth in San Antonio contrast with her bitterness over the city's insular ways. After the pandemic, she returns to San Antonio, realizing her love for the city.

Over the years, she'd often visited San Antonio. This time, she comes home.

 

 

 

 

 

London Review of Books writer Joanne O'Leary examines posthumous battles over Emily Dickinson's legac

The long, bitter battles over Emily Dickinson's manuscripts lasted nearly a century after her death, riven by family conflicts that began in Dickinson's 19th century Amherst.

London Review of Books writer Joanne O'Leary in a long, exhaustive and fascinating article in the June 3 edition of the journal examines the posthumous brawls over Dickinson's archives.

In a review of Julie Dobrow's "After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America's Greatest Poet," O'Leary moves into a broader account of the legal battles, publishing controversies, sexual intrigues and family quarrels surrounding the 1,800 poems that Dickinson wrote during her secluded life in the small college town, a hothouse of strange sex, smoldering resentments, literary politics and class snobbery.

Only a handful of Dickinson's poems were published during her lifetime, and the discovery of her work in a drawer in the poet’s room by her sister Lavinia began the nearly 100-year war.

Like Emily, Lavinia lived in the Dickinson family home, discovering Emily's astonishing manuscripts after the poet's death.

Dobrow's book seeks to rehabilitate the reputation of Mabel Loomis Todd, castigated for sanitizing Dickinson's radical poetic techniques in editing the first edition of Dickinson's poems, published in 1890. She's also scorned for her extramarital affair with Austin Dickinson, the poet's brother. The affair ended his marriage to Susan Gilbert Dickinson, Emily’s sister-in-law and confidante.

Austin Dickinson, Susan and their three children lived in a home called the Evergreens, built next door to the Homestead, where Emily and Lavinia lived in the home in which they had grown up.

An attorney, Austin Dickinson was the Amherst College treasurer, advancing the career of Mable Todd's husband, David, an astronomer who apparently enjoyed watching his wife and lover in action on a couch by a blazing fireplace.

While Todd never met the poet, she and Austin carried out much of their steamy romance at the family home where the poet lived. Never leaving her birthplace, Dickinson was there milling around during the couple's sexual escapades.

While Todd has been berated for her changes to Dickinson's work, Dobrow credits Todd with a major editorial achievement, according to O'Leary. Todd had to decipher Dickinson's handwriting and piece together the poet's alterations.

While Todd changed Dickinson's idiosyncratic punctuation and capitalization and sought to smooth out her meter to match 19th century conventions, she was more open to Dickinson's radical style than her co-editor, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dobrow found.

After praising Dobrow's work, O'Leary moves into a brief analysis of Dickinson's poems, which she finds challenging and obscure. She also shatters the myth of Dickinson as a saintly paragon of poetry, revealing that she could be manipulative, malicious and egotistical, citing with approval Denise Levertov's assessment, "Jesus, what a bitchy little spinster."

O'Leary gives a long, sympathetic glimpse at the life of Todd's daughter, Millicent, who inherited her mother's collection of Dickinson's manuscripts and was the last family combatant in the long feud. Apparently Millicent when a little girl was often present during her mother's assignations with Austin, and several times encountered Emily Dickinson.

Seeking to publish her own versions of Dickinson's poems and letters, Millicent Todd Bingham was bullied by Harvard University, which had possession of manuscripts owned by the poet's family. Harvard wanted to publish its own editions of Dickinson's poems, and receive all of Dickinson's manuscripts.

Although Millicent Todd Bingham was a Harvard geography alum, she rejected Harvard's hard-ball tactics and gave her manuscripts to Amherst College.

Millicent Todd Bingham died in 1968, the last person to have known Dickinson during her lifetime. Millicent’s death brought an end to the family war, but the embers burst into flame when disputes arise between Amherst and Harvard. And TV shows, movies, books and new editions of Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters rush on.

The strange, reclusive poet who wrote in her tiny room now fascinates the world.

 

Brett Kavanaugh thrills liberal sportswriters with NCAA broadside

Reviled by liberals during his combative Senate confirmation hearings, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is now lauded by progressive NCAA critics.

Kavanaugh blasted the NCAA's foundations in an opinion supporting the court's 9-0 ruling that college athletes must receive compensation for educational expenses.

Going further than his colleagues, Kavanaugh in his witty polemical piece said that the NCAA's rationale for not paying athletes salaries violates laws that regulate the marketplace. He characterized the NCAA as a profit-seeking business rather than an educational organization furthering the ideal of amateur athletics.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion rejecting the NCAA's prohibiting payment for such expenses as graduate school tuition, musical instruments and lab supplies.

The court didn't rule on the broader questions of salaries and payment for use of athletes' likenesses on merchandise and video games, the subject of cases in lower courts.

Writers like the Washington Post's Sally Jenkins cheered Kavanaugh's broadside as a bombshell that will bring down the NCAA and its exploitation of college players. The NCAA has pushed a duplicitous "student athlete" model as coaches make millions and the organization profits from lucrative TV deals for events such as March Madness.

Arrogant NCAA President Mark Emmert has already dismissed Kavanaugh's diatribe, and the bureaucratic monolith could prove more resilient that the anti-NCAA chorus believes.

Nominated by former President Donald Trump and accused by psychologist Christine Blassey Ford of sexually assaulting her at a drunken party when he was a prep school student, Kavanaugh during his confirmation drew intense opposition from women's advocates. The allegations revealed a disturbing history of alcohol abuse. Kavanaugh's anti-abortion views also received scrutiny.

But Kavanaugh has appeared more moderate on the court than opponents feared, although he likely will vote to overthrow Roe v. Wade.

The justice's NCAA fusillade showed that he's one of the court's best writers. In light of media criticism of Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings, he amusingly cited newspapers in his examples of businesses for which the NCAA employment model would be absurd.

Kavanaugh coaches his daughters' basketball teams and rabidly follows the Washington Nationals. Perhaps he can find a sidelight as a sportswriter.

 

Trae Young and Hawks unite a wounded city

To the national media discounting the Hawks once again: Trae Young won't be intimidated by Giannis Antetokounmpo'.

In leading the Atlanta Hawks to unexpected wins over the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers in the first two rounds of the NBA Eastern Conference playoffs, Young was a cocky bantamweight knocking out the giants. Uncowed by hostile fans, Young led the Hawks to two victories in New York and three in Philadelphia.

With the national NBA scribes again discounting Atlanta, the fearless 6-1, 181-pound Young and the Hawks will battle the 6-11, 245-pound Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA Eastern Conference finals. The seven-game series begins Wednesday night in the city where Henry Aaron led the Braves to victory over the Yankees in the 1957 World Series.

The Braves' move to Atlanta placed it on the national stage as a big league city. Over the years, Atlanta fans have suffered more heartbreak than joy. Two soccer championships and the Atlanta Braves' 1995 World Series title have been outweighed by meltdowns like the Falcons' loss to the Patriots in the 2017 Super Bowl.

After the Hawks subdued stalwart Joel Embiid's 76ers in the seventh game of their series Sunday night, long suffering Atlanta fans believe the city's sports script can be rewritten with an NBA championship. Before the franchise's move to Atlanta, the St. Louis Hawks of Bob Pettit and Cliff Hagen won the team’s sole NBA title in 1958, the last all-white roster to do so.

Like the 1991 worst to first Braves, the Hawks with their late-season rise under interim coach Nate McMillan have united the racially divided, crime-ridden city.

Even when Young's shooting turned cold Sunday night for three quarters, he displayed his distinctive play-making flair, arrowing passes inside to big man Clint Capela for dunks and setting up Kevin Huerter, who torched the 'Sixers for 27 points. With Young heating up in the fourth quarter, Danilo Gallinari came off the bench to strike the final dagger blow.

Milwaukee coach Mike Budenholzer led the Hawks to the Eastern finals in 2015, losing in four games to LaBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers. While younger, this rebuilt Hawks team looks more fearless and resourceful under McMillan.

Young and the Hawks have Atlanta fans believing.

 

 

 

Two-hole playoff ends dramatic U.S. Open tradition

The U.S. Open has returned to Torrey Pines, where Tiger Woods held off Rocco Mediate in an epic 18-hole playoff in 2008.

Golf fans now will be deprived of such drama: In a concession to short attention spans and TV's desire for instant excitement, the traditional 18-hole playoff was tossed aside in 2018. In case of a tie after 72 holes, the winner is now decided by whoever shoots the lowest aggregate score in a two-hole showdown. After that, sudden death.

An 18-hole playoff fully tests a champion’s skill and stamina, conforming to the tournament’s purpose. Luck plays too large a role in a two-hole match.

The move tosses aside a proud history: Many of the championship's most memorable victories have come in 18-hole playoffs. Along with Woods playing on a broken leg in subduing the gritty Mediate, Jack Nicklaus' usurping win over Arnold Palmer in 1962, Francis Ouimet's epochal victory in 1913, Ben Hogan's comeback in 1950 from a life-threatening auto accident and Jack Fleck's upset of Hogan in 1955 all came in 18-hole playoffs.

Palmer broke the hearts of his adoring fans in 1966, losing in a playoff to Billy Casper after blowing a seven-stroke lead the day before at Olympic Country Club in San Francisco. Lee Trevino defeated Nicklaus in a playoff in 1971 at Merion, the site of Hogan's return victory.

The Unites States Golf Association, the last golf organization to do away with the 18-hole playoff, first jettisoned tradition when it ended the 36-hole Saturday finale after Ken Venturi nearly succumbed to heatstroke in staggering to victory in 1964 at Congressional Country Club in Washington.

Torrey Pines, the site of the last classic 18-hole playoff, could witness the first two-hole finale. That would be a sad occasion for some golf fans.

 

New Yorker to march on after union reaches agreement

New Yorker readers can relax: A union strike has been averted.

The magazine's NewsGuild union for fact-checkers, copy editors and web producers has reached a contract agreement with publisher Conde´Nast that will keep the magazine rolling.

Union members seeking higher pay, limits on health insurance costs and fairer overtime rules had threatened to strike, even picketing company executive Anna Wintour's home, although she doesn't manage the New Yorker. Editor David Remnick runs the magazine independently.

Under the agreement, base pay will increase to $60,000 by 2023, still spartan for one of the world's most expensive cities. Some workers had been making as little as $42,000, and several with 20-years service were earning less than $60,000, according to a Washington Post article.

The workers will receive a 10 percent salary increase, a cap on health insurance costs and new rules on overtime and layoffs. Most of the magazine's famed writers are contract workers and not covered by the agreement.

While the deal  offers some security to the anonymous production workers, they can always aspire to fame like that achieved by some of their former colleagues.

New Yorker copy editor Mary Norris used her knowledge of grammar to establish her "Comma Queen" brand, writing best-selling books and producing a popular video series on the magazine's web site.

And New Yorker copy editor Ann Goldstein gained renown as the translator of Italian author Elena Ferrante's best-selling novels after learning the language under a New Yorker program.

Or an unsung editor can turn his or her experience into a best-selling novel, following Jay McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City," a chronicle of the city's wild cocaine days of the 1980s.

For now, the production workers will carry out their unheralded duties. No comma will be missed, or fact left unchecked. Harold Ross would be pleased.