The Alamo removed this social media post. A Texas official called it woke
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Trey and Denise Rusk in front of the Alamo
There's trouble at the Alamo again, this time on social media.
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham applauded the removal of a post celebrating "Indigenous Peoples" from the Alamo's official Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, pages.
"Woke has no place at the Alamo," Buckingham said in an X post Tuesday, adding her staff is investigating "how the Alamo Trust reviews and approves content for social media posts to official Alamo accounts."
Construction of the Alamo Visitor Center and Museum, set to open in the fall of 2027, is ongoing just west of Alamo Plaza on May 16, 2025.
The post was taken down, but another one celebrating Columbus Day is still up. Columbus Day, celebrated on the second Monday in October, is a federal holiday. Former President Joe Biden was the first president to declare Indigenous People's Day as a celebration on the same day.
Buckingham oversees the General Land Office, the custodian of the state-owned site, which is run by the nonprofit Alamo Trust through a contract.
The social media tiff began with a post Monday on the Alamo's official pages:
"Today, we honor Indigenous Peoples and their communities, recognizing their history at the Alamo. Opening in 2027, the Alamo Visitor Center and Museum will feature an Indigenous Peoples Gallery, celebrating the bands, clans, and tribes that shaped the region," the post read.
Texas General Land Office Commissioner-elect Dawn Buckingham, during an interview in. Austin, Texas, Monday, Dec. 12, 2022.
Michael Quinn Sullivan, a conservative activist who runs the right-leaning publication Texas Scorecard, posted, "Who thought this was a good idea?" tagging Buckingham on X and saying she "needs to address this."
Buckingham, responding online, thanked Sullivan for bringing the matter to her attention.
"I did NOT authorize this post. This is frankly unacceptable and it has been deleted," she wrote.
Alamo officials had no comment Tuesday. But Ramón Vásquez, an Indigenous scholar on the Alamo project's museum committee, said he's hopeful the brouhaha won't unravel progress the project has made in "celebrating the diversity of our state and our city."
The Alamo, site of a storied 1836 battle for Texas independence, began as the first of five permanent Spanish-Indigenous missions along the San Antonio River in the 1700s.
"There is nothing woke about facts. That's where people get things wrong. They want to use alternative facts, or one narrative," said Vásquez, co-founder of the American Indians in Texas Institute.
Ramon Vasquez, executive director of American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions, addresses the media during a press conference by the U.S. Postal Service building across the Alamo, Monday, Oct. 14, 2019. The group was expressing concerns over the remains found at the Alamo.
The controversy touches on how the most popular historic site in Texas portrays the state's complicated past and uses online marketing to reach potential visitors. The Alamo is undergoing a $550 million, public-private project to enhance and expand the historic site, and will be placed by 2028 in the care of a new Alamo Commission led by the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker. Under a new state law, the Land Office and Alamo Commission must enter an agreement on Sept. 1, 2027, "or as soon as practicable after that date," for the transfer of oversight "not later than Jan. 1, 2028."
One reason legislators gave for passage of the new law was to have the Alamo under multiple statewide elected officials, instead of just one. Buckingham is seeking re-election next year.
Vásquez called Buckingham's post "an irresponsible reactionary response," and said it doesn't reflect support the Land Office has provided on the project. The state agency has actively supported plans for galleries focused on mission life, Indigenous culture and civil rights movements in Texas in the visitor center.
The museum panel and its subcommittees meet privately - with Land Office staff often present - and its members serve under nondisclosure agreements not to publicly share specific issues discussed in meetings.
Ramon Vasquez speaks Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019 at the Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse across the street from the Alamo.
Since 2014, sometimes through intense debate and disagreement, diverse committees that include conservatives who relish the traditional 1836 stories of heroism in the battle, have worked to "to tell the whole story of the site," Vásquez said.
"This is probably the best team that we've been able to work with. It hasn't been 'Kumbaya' all the way, but it's miles apart from where we were" before a "reset" on the project in 2021, Vásquez said.
"We would welcome the commissioner to sit down with us and visit with us and hear how we've spent the past few years to get to where we're at today, so that all Texans and all visitors alike will have a fuller sense of education when they leave the site," he said.
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