Please TAKE ACTION and sign the following letter asking the Texas Historical Commission to the Alamo Cenotaph without a formal Cemetery Delineation Study.
Click here to send your email to Esther Brickley (Esther.Brickley@thc.texas.gov) at the THC. Please make sure to sign your name at the bottom of your email.
Sample text:
Dear commissioners,
The Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation currently has a Federal and State lawsuit pending that may potentially hinder any decisions that may affect the Mission Valero Plaza. A decision to allow the Cenotaph to be moved without a formal Cemetery Delineation Study would be irresponsible, especially since 11 bodies now have been desecrated in the Church and for all we know maybe the last six were that of Alamo Defenders or a fallen Mexican Soldier. We don’t know because our recent Open Records Request has been denied by the Texas Historical Commission.
The proposed Cenotaph relocation is within the Historic Boundaries for the Cemetery. For the past two years the Alamo Trust and the General Land Office have continually participated in fear mongering, threatening that the project will fail if they can’t move the Cenotaph, that the project will fail if they acknowledge the Cemetery in and outside the Chapel…that the Alamo walls are crumbling and are going to fall, that investors will pull out if we don’t meet a specific timeline. This creates unnecessary battle fronts with longtime stakeholders such as heritage organizations, lineal descendant groups, private business owners, ethnic communities in San Antonio and the State of Texas. All this can only be attributed to poor planning and leadership.
Douglas McDonald, Commissioner Bush and Councilman Roberto Trevino have demonstrated that they have no interest in what the citizens of San Antonio or throughout Texas have to say. They have selected only that feedback that advances their goals with complete disregard of those that may have different opinions. If this project is that vulnerable then we need to relocate the leadership and leave the Cenotaph until due diligence is done. I would challenge that with all that is at stake with this project, the real fear is the promotion of further dividing a community and fostering hate instead of nurturing the long history of such an important site. We respectfully ask that you deny the request and require an in-depth Archival Investigation and an Official Historic Cemetery Delineation Investigation of the entire Alamo Plaza.
