EDIT: See 29 April 2024 update below
So the historical markers pictured below popped up recently on the grounds of the A&M system school, WTAMU.
One commemorates J. Evetts Haley. The other....does not.
The interesting thing is that I saw the THC marker for a month or more, boxed up on its stand. My assumption was that they were waiting for a certain day, or ceremony for the unveiling. Instead, one day, I noticed it was uncovered, and a second marker was at its side. No ceremony that I saw, I heard no news accounts, and I can't find any press releases.
For background, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, on the campus of WTAMU, is one of the finest regional museums in the United States. I encourage anyone visiting Palo Duro Canyon to visit the museum. J. Evetts Haley was the first secretary of the Historical Society that created the museum, and it was his tireless efforts that led to its creation. He spent countless hours interviewing the pioneers of the Panhandle, and collecting artifacts from them.
No J. Evetts Haley, no museum.
After his stint as Society Secretary, he was on the faculty at t.u. He got bounced from there for being too outspoken. In addition, he was a prolific author, and wrote one of the great biographies, that of Charles Goodnight.
If you like the miniseries Lonesome Dove, then thank Haley, as McMurtry took the entire story from the lives of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving that Haley wrote about in his Goodnight biography.
So the marker and commemoration of Haley is well deserved, and stands near the museum he helped found, and a statue of Goodnight, the man he immortalized.
Unless you are a woke member of the faculty at a directional school. Apparently, someone, there is no record of who, was shocked, shocked I tell you, to find that a man that was born over 120 years ago was not woke. And woke people cannot stand to have a man's good works acclaimed, unless they can judge him by 2022 standards. When I was one year old, he ran for Texas governor on a platform that included segregation.
You know, the same as every Democrat of 1956. Nearly a decade before Texas integrated schools and colleges. And weirdly, the same as Democrats today, who demand separate spaces for minorities in colleges today. But by gawd, we are going to be OUTRAGED, I tell you OUTRAGED over a chapter in the man's life that had zero to do with the marker.
Frankly, I suspect a lot of the Haley hate comes from his (accurate) attack on liberal icon LBJ, before the 1964 election.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/a-texan-looks-at-lyndon/
Here are the markers. Judge for yourself. And wonder when the apology markers will be erected for any Texan of historical significance.
So the historical markers pictured below popped up recently on the grounds of the A&M system school, WTAMU.
One commemorates J. Evetts Haley. The other....does not.
The interesting thing is that I saw the THC marker for a month or more, boxed up on its stand. My assumption was that they were waiting for a certain day, or ceremony for the unveiling. Instead, one day, I noticed it was uncovered, and a second marker was at its side. No ceremony that I saw, I heard no news accounts, and I can't find any press releases.
For background, the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, on the campus of WTAMU, is one of the finest regional museums in the United States. I encourage anyone visiting Palo Duro Canyon to visit the museum. J. Evetts Haley was the first secretary of the Historical Society that created the museum, and it was his tireless efforts that led to its creation. He spent countless hours interviewing the pioneers of the Panhandle, and collecting artifacts from them.
No J. Evetts Haley, no museum.
After his stint as Society Secretary, he was on the faculty at t.u. He got bounced from there for being too outspoken. In addition, he was a prolific author, and wrote one of the great biographies, that of Charles Goodnight.
If you like the miniseries Lonesome Dove, then thank Haley, as McMurtry took the entire story from the lives of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving that Haley wrote about in his Goodnight biography.
So the marker and commemoration of Haley is well deserved, and stands near the museum he helped found, and a statue of Goodnight, the man he immortalized.
Unless you are a woke member of the faculty at a directional school. Apparently, someone, there is no record of who, was shocked, shocked I tell you, to find that a man that was born over 120 years ago was not woke. And woke people cannot stand to have a man's good works acclaimed, unless they can judge him by 2022 standards. When I was one year old, he ran for Texas governor on a platform that included segregation.
You know, the same as every Democrat of 1956. Nearly a decade before Texas integrated schools and colleges. And weirdly, the same as Democrats today, who demand separate spaces for minorities in colleges today. But by gawd, we are going to be OUTRAGED, I tell you OUTRAGED over a chapter in the man's life that had zero to do with the marker.
Frankly, I suspect a lot of the Haley hate comes from his (accurate) attack on liberal icon LBJ, before the 1964 election.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/a-texan-looks-at-lyndon/
Quote:
Titled A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power, the 254-page self-published paperbackHaley says no publishing house would touch itportrayed Johnson as a vain and vicious man whose climb to the presidency was wrought with malevolence on every rung of the ladder. Haley quoted with obvious relish a description of the National Youth Administration, of which Johnson had been a state director, as "a disloyal, subversive organization, under the domination of Russia." He contended that Johnson was a congressman who supported farm programs "conceived by the Communist cell in agriculture." He alleged that as vice president, Johnson "accepted second place for money."....
Haley is now (article is from 1987) 86 and unrepentant. When he's not tending his ranch, he spends most of his time in his Midland office and library. He maintains that the book's allegations must have been true or he would have been sued for libel. And he resents that he is seldom cited in the dozens of Johnson biographies that have appeared since 1964. "'Course," he says with a sharp-edged crackle, "everybody wants to write about the sonofa***** now that he's dead."
Here are the markers. Judge for yourself. And wonder when the apology markers will be erected for any Texan of historical significance.