“I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.” -- Molly Ivins
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When I was a little kid, no myth had greater power over my imagination than that of Davy Crockett. Like millions of others, I had a coonskin cap and a toy rifle. And like millions of others, I was mesmerized by Walt Disney’s 1955 TV series version of Crocket’s’s heroic last stand at the Alamo.
The only problem is that it wasn’t true.
According to the book, Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth, the historical record departs from the Disney version in significant ways. It documents that the territory’s war for independence from Mexico, including battle between the ragged group of volunteers held up at the old mission in San Antonio and Santa Ana’s Mexican army, was in part over the issue of slavery.
At the Alamo, the pro-slavery group, (Crockett’s side), lost.
And there was nothing heroic about the occasion. Many of the volunteers broke ranks and ran, and were easily cut down in the open as they tried to flee. Crockett himself appears to have surrendered and was executed.
This information is only now gaining currency because the memoirs of Mexican soldiers at the scene and other contemporaneous accounts are finally being taken seriously by historians.
Today, in 2026, Texas is a majority-Latino state.
So it really is time to abolish the old Anglo myths like the Alamo fairy tale, acknowledge the role of slavery in America’s creation, and stop suppressing minority voters, which is happening right now, in real time in Texas with its gerrymandering.
The late, great Texas muckraker Molly Ivins got it right when she said: “There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.”
This is one of those times.
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