The Yellow Rose of Texas was a Racial Myth

Discussion of Racism Begins with White Supremacy. We are aware that an education is the road to success, but without liberation it is hollow log filled with rot. We have yet to uncover the many mounds of half-truths, omissions, lies, distortions, and erasures of the true history of America. Many schools teach the usual dumb downed, recycled and dry as dust history from a distorted point of view that is filled with white supremacist interpretations or simply just trite information. For example, how many times have we heard about the so-called founding fathers? Yet, in explaining how great they were nothing is ever said about how they wanted only white men with property to vote. Nothing said about their protection of slavery when many of them knew it was wrong but protected it, both in word and deed, to be elected.
We know from the latest historical accounts that the so-called “Yellow Rose of History” was nothing but a racist myth designed to belittle blacks and Mexicans. Emily D. West was never the “Yellow Rose of Texas” and her name was never Emily Morgan. The hotel downtown, across the street from the Alamo has it all wrong. Emily West was never a slave as told by racist historians and her last name was not “Morgan.” She was a free black woman that came to Texas under a contract to work for pay in a hotel. She never had a relationship with Santa Anna in some tent which supposedly caused the Mexican forces to lose the Battle of San Jacinto as related in myth.
In fact, General Santa Anna liberated blacks being held in slavery wherever his soldiers went. This evidence has been documented in Dr. Phillip Tucker’s book, The Yellow Rose of Texas Myth.” All across Texas, where people like Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and William Travis, slave owners came to Texas to establish a slave state even after Mexico abolished slavery in 1829. Thousands of slaves fled to Mexico or joined Santa Anna’s army to fight the Alamo defenders and pro-slavery men from Louisiana. In fact, thousands of pro-slavery criminals invaded Texas in the hope of stealing land and bringing slaves in with them. Santa Anna is not quite the bad guy he has been made out to be as far as slavery is concerned. He liberated black slaves wherever he could.
Many people have an acute awareness of the methods of propaganda used by this society. When the history of Santa Anna is not taught, but only the slave owner version of Texas independence, then a false picture is painted that is racist. White supremacy has propagandized many for it was the only philosophy that ruled for hundreds of years. This is why any discussion of racism must begin with talking about white supremacy. The false history of Santa Anna does not end with this short story. The range of falsehoods we have been told is extensive.
During World War I, American cities experienced riots and horrible acts of wickedness committed against African Americans. Blacks, for the most part never supported WWI as many knew it was a war aimed at dividing up the world amongst the colonial powers of Europe. Meanwhile, racist thought and action in America was spurred by the making of a 1915 pro-KKK film called, “Birth of a Nation” by D.W. Griffith. This bigoted propaganda film was used to yeast up a racialized white population into committing acts of racist terror across the nation. Blacks and Mexicans, and even poor whites were brutalized and hanged during this era. When was this taught in high school? It wasn’t, for the most part, and that is my point. Racialized history ignores these historical facts and attempts to paint a rosy picture of an American and a Texas society that never existed.
Racists at West Point provided the film maker of Birth of a Nation with all of the artillery pieces used in the film that attempted to falsely portray the era of Reconstruction as some sort of “black dictatorship.” Pure lies! The film pushed the racist stereotype that black men (whites were used in the film dressed in black-face) wanted to rape white women to justify the racist brutal acts of the KKK and white supremacists. Many African Americans escaped the draft during WWI in San Antonio by going to Mexico. Blacks refused to believe the slogan that the war was going to make the “World Safe for Democracy,” when they were not allowed to vote and were being lynched by crazed mobs throughout the country. There was no democracy for African Americans in the United States during WWI. In fact, this country never entered the democratic age until 1965. Ever hear that in your high school social studies class? No! Because falsehoods are what is being taught! There is no truth in much of our education system and that has to change.
According to research, Blacks refused to appear for induction in Texas during World War I at the rate of 6.44%. Some of this opposition is directly related to how blacks were being treated in the army and at home. In classrooms across the country people were being taught that whites were superior to everyone through the use of false science. This is where the term Caucasian comes from. The term Caucasian was invented by a racist anthropologist that was seeking to prove that human evolution began in Europe. Did any teacher ever tell you this? NO! The lies that have been taught are many, and people often go from birth to death with a mind filled with propaganda. The untruths that we hold in our heads were placed there on purpose to perpetuate a mindless education based on white supremacy. This is why we must reevaluate what we have learned and what we have not been taught.