Kate Rogers, CEO and president of the Alamo Trust, resigned on Oct. 24 following political backlash that began with a now-deleted social media post commemorating Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The post, published on the Alamo’s official X account, also referenced the $550 million museum project slated to open in 2027, prompting concern among Trinity and San Antonio community members about the future of the redevelopment plan.
The controversy has reignited long-standing debates over how the Alamo’s history is told, and more broadly, who gets to shape public memory in San Antonio. At Trinity, these same questions circle the work of the Roots Commission, an ongoing initiative to confront the institution’s own historical narrative. Scholars now worry that political interference at the Alamo may signal broader threats to educational and historical integrity.
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham responded to the Indigenous Peoples’ post on X with a call for an investigation, noting that “woke has no place at the Alamo.” A week later, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick echoed her stance, and called for Rogers’ removal, citing “troubling writing” in her 2023 doctoral dissertation. In the paper, Rogers had expressed hope that the Alamo might become “a beacon for historical reconciliation,” while acknowledging that “politically that may not be possible at this time.”
On Oct. 20, the Alamo’s board of trustees issued an apology and announced that long-time board member and former Texas Secretary of State Esperanza “Hope” Andrade would assume the role of CEO effective immediately. Patrick’s office did not respond to the Trinitonian’s request for comment by the time of publication, and Buckingham declined to provide comment.
During his tenure as mayor of San Antonio, Ron Nirenberg served on the Alamo Cooperative Agreement executive committee that oversees the Alamo’s broader redevelopment plan. While on the committee, Nirenberg said that he had worked with Patrick to ensure that politics didn’t interfere with the project.
“This is an unfortunate turn of events, because it’s the first time in nine years that this partisan political invective has been injected into the plan,” Nirenberg said.
Nirenberg said that he believes Rogers deserves a public apology from the land commissioner and lieutenant governor, but that Andrade is well-positioned to stabilize the situation.
“Hope has relationships on both sides of the aisle in San Antonio and in Austin. I think she is certainly capable of calming the waters. It just depends on how much of this partisan invective has been unleashed by this episode,” Nirenberg said.
If partisanship continues to follow the Alamo, Nirenberg said that the museum construction could be set back at a cost to the city, which has already invested millions of public dollars into the project.
“My concern is that we’ve crossed a threshold here, and it’s going to take a lot of maturity and humility among elected officials to make sure that we pull back from that,” Nirenberg said. “If this becomes somebody’s partisan playground, that, on its face, violates the guiding principles that are the foundation of this entire project that’s taken decades and hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Ann Benson McGlone, a restoration architect, served on the 1994 Alamo Plaza Committee. She noted that disputes over historical interpretation have long shaped the site’s legacy — from her work on the plaza to debates over the Alamo Cenotaph in 2020 — which Buckingham rededicated earlier this week.
“I was a little disappointed that Kate rolled over so quickly. I think that she could’ve been an Alamo hero too,” McGlone said. “There have always been people who have tried to rewrite history in their own reference, but eventually history comes back.”
As the debate continues, scholars involved with the museum’s planning have voiced concern about its future. Among them is Lauren Turek, director of Trinity’s museum studies program and a member of the Alamo Trust Collections Committee and the Alamo Museum Planning Committee’s Civil Rights Subcommittee.
“The plan from the beginning has been to tell a full history of the site, starting with the indigenous history and moving all the way into the present, where we think about the legacy, as well as the standalone civil rights history gallery,” Turek said. “As far as I know, that remains the plan.”
Turek said she sees clear parallels between the Alamo’s museum project and Trinity’s own reckoning with institutional history through the Roots Commission.
“I think that we should learn about our past because it’s the right thing to do… but we should also be trying to provide the very best version of our values to our students, and to always be pushing ourselves to be better,” Turck said. “I don’t think you can do that if you don’t have a fair, true and accurate reporting of what happened in the past.”
It remains to be seen how the Alamo will be represented in its newest museum. But according to those involved, the stakes are high. The outcome will not only determine the future of the landmark, but may shadow the broader landscape of public history in San Antonio.
