Transcripts For CSPAN3 C-SPAN Cities Tour Visits San Antonio Texas 20240713

The cspan cities tour is exploring american stories as we take book tv and American History tv on the road. We travel to san antonio, texas. Coming up in the next hour we will experience the history of this south, texas city. Starting with a visit to the San Antonio Missions National Historical park. Following that in about 20 minutes we will hear about the role the city played in early military aviation. And in about 40 minutes visit one of the citys most recognizable features and biggest attractions, the historic river walk. Later a trip to the Spanish Governors Palace, one of the oldest buildings in the city dating back to the founding. We begin our special feature at Mission San Jose, one of four remaining colonial Spanish Missions in san antonio. Welcome to our Spanish Governors Palace. What youre looking at is actually the last visual remnants of the presidio, the original facility was built in the 1720s and it was really the residence for the captain. What we are looking at today is really a romanticized version of what this building would have been. Again, it was the military headquarters and deanna d de savala who was one of our first preservationists in san antonio worked very hard when she identified this building as being the original garrison and preserving it. Its been many Different Things over time and its been added on over time as well. So this is where it all began, little oneroom house built for the captain, the original house was built with adobe bricks in 1722 based on a letter the governor wrote to the king in june of that year, talked about 25,000 adobe bricks they needed to make and 40 additional laborers they needed to hire to build the compound. You can see behind the wall at the top there the adobe bricks thats the original from 1722. The architect found this when they were doing the restoration and decided to open it up so people could see the original wall. This was the captains home, his office, everything in one room, cooking was done outside of course. We will go this way next. This room and the entrance and the room on the to the right, to your left, was added in 19 1749 by captain orutia. When these rooms were added there was not a door down here, this door was cut when the city did the restoration. The captain would walk out of his front door, go out and walk into his office. He kept his home and work separate. The city cut doors there so the visitors wouldnt have to go outside and come back around to another room. This was the main living area for the family. When these rooms were added on to the house the captain moved all of his work items from his first little house to his new office at the end and that room became the only bedroom in the house during the spanish era. This was, again, the living room, the dining room, cooking was still done outside because of the fire hazard. This is the captains was the captains new office in 1749. He took care of business. Captains were also merchants. They would have items brought up from mexico and they would turn around and sell them to the families that lived here. So he would probably have some of the items on display here. The brasures were used to heat the rooms. They would bring in hot coals after the meals had been cooked, put them in the pan, cover them lightly with ash to keep it from smoking about you it would still let the heat out to warm the room. It wouldnt be as toasty as we are used to, but it would have been better than without it. Okay. This direction. This room was added on in the late 1700s, sometime between 1763 when captain orutia died and 1804 when the building was sold to captain perez. This was added on when captain menchaca and his son owned the building. This room we believe was added here was built here to give the captains more space to display the goods that they were bringing up to sell to the families that lived here. They would have sold textiles, some leather goods, things that they couldnt make here in town they would have them brought up from mexico. Preserving these structures is incredibly important. Its not just its not just about the history. I really think its the story that people are interested in. Like i said, this building not a whole lot of it is actually original, very little, in fact, but it tells a story and people are able to come in and get an idea of what it would have been like and also learn a little bit about san antonio throughout time. The story of preservation here in san antonio, how its not always may not always be accurate, it may be romanticized, it may not have been, you know, quite what people imagine, but it gets people thinking. Its important for visitors and local to just realize what a rich and varied history we have had. Our look at san antonio continues as we hear from historian lewis fisher about the settlement of the city. We are standing in near the Geographical Center of san antonio, texas. We are in front of whats called the Spanish Governors Palace in a town that was actually set up here due to the conflicts between two european empires, france and spain, in the 18th century. Spain had, of course, established itself well in latin america and south america and in mexico and northern mexico was especially important to spain because of very rich silver mines. France was over to the northeast in louisiana and it was up it had reached up to the northern border of new spain along the red river where it was causing some trouble with the indians and looking straight across the empty reaches of texas into the silver mines down in zacatecas and elsewhere. The spaniards knew they had to have some sort of defense and they came upon san antonio and so in 1618, 302 years ago, san antonio was established here. The first challenge they faced was getting water. The first things the priest did when they set up a Community Like san antonio is they built a church, but the second thing they did was to set up a water system and in texas you have rivers, but you dont really have a lot of green fertile areas too far away from them. So to address that they drew from their experience in spain which had come from arabia which had actually come from the roman empire, a system of irrigation ditches and they were not just irrigation ditches but they also furnished Drinking Water and water for the cattle and everybody else. Everybody used the same water, nobody knew anything about germs. Then they wondered why they had epidemics but they figured that out. So san antonio was selected in large part because it had two major sources of water upstream. We had the head waters of the San Antonio River and we had the head waters of san pedro creek. So from those places engineers very carefully because this land was rather flat they were able to dee surprise a system of a half dozen asacias which came from those rivers and came through channels that followed the line of gravity downhill through what became san antonio and back into the river so that the water continued to flow. San antonio used that system for more than 100 years. It wasnt until the end of the 19th century that that system finally was not in general use but there still have two at the Spanish Missions, one serving Mission Espada and one serving Mission San Juan which are still used by area farmers to water their crops. Religion has a very visible role in the community. In addition to the to what you dont see you have on main plaza the cathedral of san fernando which began in 1731 as the Parish Church but also we have five missions in san antonio which are now named a World Heritage site. We have our First Mission the alamo which began as Mission San Antonio de polero which was in the city of san antonio and a few years later there was a Second Mission established which was Mission San Jose which has been restored rather elaborately and is the is the largest was the largest and most Successful Mission in texas. In three of the missions actually moved from north texas to san antonio and they are scattered along the San Antonio River south of downtown. The largest of them is Mission Concepcion which is the largest the church itself is the largest unrestored church in the Spanish Church in the united states. We also have two smaller ones, Mission San Francisco and Mission San Juan capistrano which we call san juan to keep from confusing the californians. That gives us five missions which are the largest grouping of Spanish Missions in the united states. Texas was very desirable for its geography and its location and as a lot of lands are it went the control went back and forth between various governmental entities. I would suspect that san antonioness got whiplash in the early 19th century, there were six different governments in san antonio, first up until the 1820s san antonio was under the overall control of spain, then in 1821 there was a revolution in which mexico took control, then came the republic of texas, the revolution in 1836 which was related to the alamo and we had the republic of texas, then in 1845 texas was annexed by the united states. In 1861 we had the confederacy in charge and then four years later we were back to the united states. But probably the single factor that shaped san antonios character and its appearance and its very being was its isolation on the texas frontier. We are inland, we are a couple hundred miles from the texas coast and the only way to reach san antonio was by ox cart from the texas coast and that took a couple of days when it wasnt raining and when there wasnt mud. It was a very difficult city to get to until san antonio finally got a railroad in 1877 at which point san antonio began to explode. The Tourism Business was one of the first that took off because san antonio had been a familiar topic of magazines and other publications, periodicals in the united states. Reporters would love to come to san antonio and report on what it looked like so there is a great awareness of this. This didnt totally please people like in houston where the railroad came from and after the railroad came one newspaper over there reported that hoards of people went to san antonio for a day to peep around and then come back and tell everyone how queer the city looked. And it did. It did. And that was a big a big attraction then and that is still become an attraction now. San antonio is probably three hours from the mexican border, but the proximity to mexico has been very beneficial to san antonio long term because of immigration. When the mexican revolution began in 1910 there was so much violence that the mexican citizens, many of them began crossing the rio grande and coming up into texas. They were settled in refugee camps and tens of thousands of them came to san antonio. For many years they lived in the poorest centers of town, but then as the generations went on they became leading citizens in the community. We had henry b. Gonzalez was our first hispanic congressman in the 1950s and that has really helped make san antonio the type of place it is today. I think it would be important for people to realize as they learn about san antonio simply to understand what a distinctive and diverse city san antonio is. How significant its roots are in history and how much it has contributed to the history of the country. During our time in san antonio the cspan cities tour visited various historic sites. Up next we will take to you Randolph Air Force base to hear about the citys military aviation history. When a fellow learns to fly with the Army Air Corps he doesnt learn it all in a day, a week or even a month. The gateway to the air service is a big schooling ground at san antonio, texas. The primary training point for army pilots. Were here at Randolph Air Force base where Aerospace Power begins and we are on building 100 the taj mahal one of the great iconic buildings in air force history. From here you can see the entirety of Randolph Air Force base, its circular design. Its a beautiful base. Its a functional base. It was built just in time to help the air force steadily build its numbers so that it would have an Award Winning air force by 1943 to 1943 and they built it to be the show place of the air force. It became known as west point of the air. As with engineers and artillery specialists in the army, here is where you learn the craft of flying and supporting flying operations. So many of the greats in air force history started here and have come back here. A lot of people mention this base as being important to san antonio. It is. Why is it important . Randolph has always been a steady generator for business, steady generator for Technology Innovation and some of the very best of American Society come here. Its one of the most diverse bases in the air force and if you want diversity of thought, diversity of backgrounds, religions, the air force is the place to go. Randolph might be more emblematic of that than any other base because we all learn to fight, fly and win here and almost everyone comes through randolph at one time or another. Randolph field for the basic course, nearby kelly field for advanced students, combine to form the nerve center of americas air force training program. Expanding u. S. Defense calls for the schooling of 30,000 pilots each year. San antonio had always been looking for another base outside of what was brooks and kelly. As the air force expanded they realized the need to have a larger base so in 1926 the air corps act gave a lot of money to the medical government and to the Army Air Corps in particular to build new bases. So the selection of land here north of san antonio kind of brought together the fruition of all the three bases together, training the number of pilots that would be necessary as we moved between the war periods in the 20s and 30s and so randolph became that iconic visual for the air force. As you come through harman drive you see the taj mahal, the administrative building its an impressive thing. For young people coming to the air force that impressive building gave them a sense of pride not only in what they were about to do but in their country n that way randolph was reflective of the pride for our nation at the time. So in those early films, those films from early world war ii, it was almost a recruitment tool that would be used. The army would use it in different bases throughout the country, the air corps branch of the army would use it here at randolph to highlight and say, hey, you know, if you are thinking about joining, lets join the air service or the air corps. Back there the movie was the thing that you would go to. So every saturday, you know, the kids would go there and they would see the randolph, the west point of the air, this he would see Randolph Air Force base, they would see the training. Even then, remember, flying was new so the idea of actually getting in an aircraft and, you know, leaving the surly bounds of the earth were something that every young person probably imagined they would be able to do. For a lot of folks especially leading into world war ii we turned out a lot of pilots for the service in world war ii. So when you look from this perspective what you see is you see the layout of the base. So clark who laid out the base was working in a motor pool down at kelly field and general lahm had been appointed to take care of this flying training here at randolph and to get the base layout. So clark designed the ways, he was an architect in a former life but now he was a flying trainer and gunner instructor and he decided he would lay out the base so there were three flying ramps or flying strips and then in the middle it would be a concentric area where centered in the middle in a circular design around the three sides of the airstrips it was easy ak sell. So from any point on the base you can cut through the circle through the middle circle and get to another part of the base rather than having to walk all around. Its a neat design and clark wanted to design what he called an air city and thats what randolph is today. Theres always flying training going on here at randolph. Theres t 38s, t1s, t 6s that fly. They do what they do here as the mission here for most of the flying training is they train training instructors. So basically the aircraft that you hear flying today are already pilot licensed pilots, air force pilots who are coming here to learn how to train other pilots. So its one thing to be able to fly a plane, its another thing to be able to teach someone else how to fly a plane and thats what they do here at randolph. Were in front of the old hospital on randolph and its part of the school of aviation medicine complex that came from brooks to randolph when it opened. One of its first and enduring missions was to study the physiology of flight. Through world war ii they developed all types of things like the g suits that helped keep pilots consideration during a dog fight, but after the war it became a focus of Space Training. A lot of people dont realize t but before nasa the air force was in charge of the space aspect of technology and investigative research. As space became more and more the international kind of proving grounds and battlefield, randolph became less and less prominent. Much of the Space Training went back to brooks which became the Human Systems command. But as i speak that technology has made a full circle. The technology that made randolph possible, the Aviation Technology that was just exploding in the 20s and 30s now we have a space force and we see the nascent space force coming and who knows where that headquarters will be but a lot of it will have started here at randolph and we will hand that baton to the space force, in fact, we already have, and as weve learned from just studying this base you never know where thats going to lead. What technologies and maybe a new base or maybe an old base that we can visit in 90 years and see what their impact was. Our special on san antonio continues with a visit to the university of texas at san antonios special collection toss hear about the southwest Voter Registration education project and the impact it had on the latino population across the southwest. His name was william c. Velazquez but everybody knew him as willie. Willie was and is now a name synonymous with democracy in america. Through the organization he founded the southwest Voter Registration education project, he nearly doubled hispanic Voter Registration and dramatically increased the number of latino elected officials in this nation. His appeal to the Hispanic Community was simple, passionate and direct. [ speaking Foreign Language ] your vote is your voice. Were going to be talking about the records of the southwest Voter Registration education project. They are the oldest and largest nonpartisan latino Voter Registration organization in the country. The collection contains the first 20 years of the organizations existence, they are still in existence today. Its a very deep and wide collection if youre interested in learning about Voter Registration, particularly in minority communities. The organization was started in 1974 by willie velazquez, william c. Velazquez. He is from san antonio and from a very as a very young man he was heavily involved in the chicano movement. When he was in college he was one of the founders of the mexicanamerican Youth Organization which was involved in doing Voter Registration drives at local colleges. Also involved in high school walkouts. This was in the late 60s, early 70s when sort of the height of the chicano movement, the beginning of it and the height of it. So he was really interested in Voter Registration and getting the Latino Community to vote. To register to vote and to realize that they have a voice and by voting they have a voice. In fact, the motto is [ speaking Foreign Language ] which means your vote is your voice. So in 1974 willie was able to successfully apply for a 503 c and he became or the organization became a national nonprofit. So here we have the articles of incorporation. So he would sit down and he would just start calling. Hey, are you registered to vote . Did you know that tomorrow is election day . So eventually the organization expanded to not only covering texas but also all of the southwest so arizona, new mexico, california, utah, colorado, nevada and they grew to have a fulltime staff, they had a board of directors and they had a lot going on. They still have a lot going on. There were three main departments, the field organizing department, the Legal Department and the Research Department. The field organizing department focused mainly on Voter Education and training and they hit the pavement not only in san antonio, not only in texas but they came up with a whole system for identifying coordinators in the various regions, different counties all over the southwest and they created very detailed training manuals for how to put together a Voter Registration drive. Everything you need to know and it would start with a field coordinator. Here you can see they tell you what do you need to prepare for a Voter Registration drive . So, for example, its saying you really need to know your state election laws. You need to be able to answer these questions. If you dont know the law, the voting law or the election code, then you just you dont look as informed as you should be. So theyre telling these Field Coordinators you need to know your stuff and that the whole principle of this organizing campaign is unity. You want to get the community together, you want to organize the community and be united in this effort. So once the all of this, the coordinators manual it tells you exactly what you need to do, you need to get local politicians on board, you need to talk to local churches, you need to talk to everyone in the community and say this is what were trying to do. Once you have all of that together then they had a program where you could apply for a grant essentially. You would have to fill out a form that said how you were going to do the drive, how many volunteers youve been able to secure, what your budget is, the dates, everything had to be figured out ahead of time. They would send in their application, it would get approved and then they would get the training. So here is the Field Training manual and it tells you everything from sample canvassers, household contact sheets, it has information on the media and how to deal with the media and what to say to the media, procedures and administration of a Voter Registration project. So its every single thing that you need to know to have a successful Voter Registration drive. And these Regional Planning committees the files that we have theyre just there are hundreds of them. Hundreds. And by the 80s they were organizing on average 100 Voter Registration drives a year. For all of those Regional Planning committees as you can see here we have one from yuma county in arizona and we just have hundreds and hundreds of these from counties all over the southwest. Now, whats really cool about this one is that we actually have photographs. They sent in photographs we be they sent in their information about their registration drive and whats great about these is that i often get asked for photographs and really considering how large the collection is we really we dont have that many photographs and ive asked lydia who is the current president about that because shes been involved with the organization for a long time and she said we were too busy to take photographs. We were too busy organizing and registering voters to take photographs. So its really great to be able to see what they were doing here in summerton, arizona, and some of the some of the Regional Committee reports from the various counties do have photographs like this, but i think this one has the most. And here is another example, this one is from a county in rodstown, texas, and here you can see their reimbursement form for everything that they did. So their office supplies, their kickoff rally, the volunteer costs. Everything was accounted for. So here we have examples from the Research Department. The Research Department was very prolific, they did a lot of work to collect, research, they conducted their own research and then they published research reports. The collection contains a lot of census data, a lot of Election Results data and they conducted exit polls, opinion polls. They were gathering as much data as they could to get these reports out. Now, in 1985 because this was such a huge part of the organization they founded the research arm called southwest Voter Research institute and they we have hundreds and hundreds of reports. Here you can see they would do mention like a political and demographic analysis of the 27th Congressional District and or the hispanic political participation. You know, they were polling mexicanamericans to find out what are the issues that you face, what are your opinions, what are your voting habits, to really understand how they can reach more mexicanamericans, how they can produce training material and workshops to make mexicanamericans feel like they actually have a voice and that they, too, can participate in the democratic process. Now, here in san antonio some of the issues were just basic services such as roads, sidewalks, education. And from that this was really influential in how willie got involved with Voter Registration. So sadly in 1988 willie passed away from Kidney Cancer and his funeral was there were more than 1,000 people at his funeral, it was covered on local news, national news, the New York Times had an article about it and even Michael Dukakis was at his funeral and a lot of National Politicians when they heard the news they made statements about how important willie was to the political process and getting minorities involved in the political process. In 1995 president clinton posthumously awarded willie the president ial medal of freedom. Here we have the invitation to mrs. Velazquez for the ceremony awarding him the president ial medal of freedom. The sevrep collection and sevrep is not only important to san antonio, not only important to the southwest because they did work all across the southwest not just texas, but its important nationally. What theyve been able to do in terms of increasing mexicanamerican Voter Registration, also having an influence on how many politicians, mexicanamerican politicians we have in office now, they have made a huge impact on getting out the vote to minority communities. The cspan cities tour is exploring the american story. Join us the first and third weekends of each month as we take book tv and American History tv on the road. To watch videos from the many places weve been go to cspan. Org slash cities tour and follow us on twitt twitter cspancities. As we continue our look at san antonio we take you to the Historic Downtown river walk. We are standing on the historic part of the San Antonio River walk which has developed into one of the worlds great linear parks. Its not something that started out to be this. Back in the 1700s when san antonio was first established this was the major source of water for the residents of the city. There were various irrigation ditches that came from it and furnished water to the growing community. About as the city grew the railroad came in the 1870s and the population exploded, gravitydriven Water Systems just werent working. They couldnt get water to run over a hill and so a new water system was established with artesian wells which when drilled into the ground and which took water from the ground and lowered the water table so that the San Antonio River was frequency going dry. At that point in 1914 the city created a park through downtown along what was to be the river walk, just mainly a park in plannings, not too much else, which was here for about 25 years until with the wpa a project was initiated to develop the river walk. An architect by the name of robert pugman came up with a design that would give a sort of a fanciful appearance to the area, it would include shops and boats and colorful walkways that would dress up the river. Which did all right except that nobody came down to the river walk and it became dangerous. It was not until san antonios worlds fear hemisphere in 1968 that enough hotels were built on the river walk to generate a strong pedestrian traffic Strong Enough to support businesses, which happened, then all of a sudden there was a lot of commercial development and the river walk became successful as we know it. By being below the level of the street its warmer down here and we have essentially a semitropical Botanical Garden in the plantings along the river walk. Theres not the cold breezes that you have up above and plants thrive that could not thrive at street level. Another hallmark of the river walk are the cyprus trees which are planted along the banks. These are roots that go down and hold the soil, but they also get very tall and so as the hotels are built along the river walk, the cypruss give a sense of scale and keep these Tall Buildings from overwhelming the river walk itself. So you get a sense of being in a very different environment. The part of the river that we are on right now, the river walk, is essentially two miles. This was originally a loop that actually headed straight east and then south and then west again and was connected by a Flood Control channel so that the water wouldnt have to come all the way around. This is the historical part of the riverwalk from the 1930s. About ten years ago the riverwalk was expanded to the north in an area called the museum reach because theres several museums along there and there has been significant commercial development to the north, it was also extended to the south so that the length of the riverwalk now is about 15 miles. The advantage to all the starts and stops that weve had along the way is that the buildings have evolved, the surroundings from evolved in almost a haphazard way that does not give the appearance of a place that was suddenly created in one stroke to be what it is. It gives a sense of the passage of time and of variety and interest that is much of a charm of the riverwalk. Up next, the mayor of san antonio provides insight into the citys history and its rich heritage. San antonio is located in the heart of south texas, the gateway to latin america, a couple hundred miles away from the mexican border. You know, when you think about san antonio you often think of the World Heritage missions of which the alamo is a vital part. We also sit on top of the worlds most prolific singlesource aquifer which has fueled this community for generations, for hundreds of years and really the confluence of water ways is why this region was settled in the first place. Today even though we are a burgeoning metropolitan area, sixth largest seventh largest city in the country, you can see our riverwalk which is one of the top tourist destinations in the world be part of a great urban revitalization that also includes Ecosystem Restoration on a 25 kilometer river way. Of course, something im very proud of is that here we are on the footsteps of one of the largest fossil fuel reserves in the entire world and we just ratified a Climate Action Adaptation Plan that on my first day in office as mayor we chose to declare ourselves in to the paris climate accords and we ratified that plan just a few months ago to help us implement strategies to meet the compliance with the accords. San antonio is one of the Fastest Growing cities in the country and so our challenges and what were working on is really how to accommodate that growth, but also benefit the people who are already here. So as we grow, as we continue to build equity within communities of color, we want to make sure that we embrace that heritage, embrace the history. San antonio is very much a bicultural community so the latino story is a san antonio story. We have been able to strengthen ourselves through diversity and so the increasingly polarized rhetoric on immigration is a detriment to our country and certainly challenges some of the foundations of our city. The current way that the administration is not handling the border issues and immigration and instead for lack of a better term detaining people, a lot of that pressure has been relieved by dropping, you know, detained migrants into our cities with very little notice. Im very proud of the fact that when that started happening here in san antonio, we stood up a Migrant Resource Center that brought folks in, grout community in to help provide food, provide clothing, provide medical assistance, provide in many cases transport to where they were going for their asylum hearings. We very much treated them as, you know, human beings should be treated. Cared for even while all of the crisis was happening. Our whole community embraced that. Thats the nature of our community. When i say we are a welcoming and compassionate place, we dont ask our first question is how can we help and thats exactly what you saw with the border issues that have been happening lately. Weve been able to really focus on our our ethos, our values and ensure that we continue to be a welcoming city to immigrants, to all communities internationally, to refugees, even while theres such detrimental rhetoric with regard to immigration. Where i see us going is that we continue to build on those roots, those values, but we also grow into ourselves as one of the strongest economies in america. We have all the tools at our disposal to continue to build a san antonio that we can enjoy with high quality of life, but also, you know, strengthen the emerging industries that we see in cybersecurity, biosciences and bioengineering, you know, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, technology, all of those emer emerging industries which we are now aligning to our Higher Education community and our k through 12 Education System which will create a workforce thats built to last. That, you know, a child can be born here in a familyfriendly environment, find, you know, their pathway lieu the Education System and build a career here that they can accomplish their dreams. Im very excited about san antonio. You know, claiming its place on the mantel of one of americas top cities. Our look at the city of san antonio continues as we sit down with author Catherine Clinton to hear about her book confederate statues and memorialization. The American Civil War has had a really grand impact around the world because people look to this nation nearly coming apart, coming back together, having a new birth of freedom and here we are in the 21st century having really quite spirited debates. The headlines, the newspapers, a lot of commentary was focusing in on statuary, confederate statues and peoples deep feeling about the legacy of the civil war, what the civil war meant today, and i think students in the classroom and general readers want to know how people feel about these issues. So i got interested with a colleague i worked with for many years, jim downs, and we put together a series. We had a panel called history in the headlines and we got historians to talk about how we wanted to make sure that we were plugged into these larger issues. We put out a book a year on a topic that is a burning issue. Certainly the confederate statues and memorialization when we put it together a round table of scholars in 2017 published in 2019. We wanted to really address something that would be contemporary and fresh. We discussed silent sam, the statue on the university of north carolina. The protests against it wanting to pull it undo. The board of overseers taking a position against removing it, more protests to follow and then eventually the sale of it is a really interesting issue. Money being donated for the removal. This i know happened at vanderbilt as well, you had a confederate memorial hall, the udc had paid for the erection of the hall, when it was determined by the university to remove it, a century later, nearly a century later, you pay the people who erected it, who named it for that privilege. So we now have the irony of hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars being given to united daughters of the confederacy, sons of confederate veterans, other societies which are promoting often a very partisan view, the very partisan view that people believe is embodied by some of the statuary. Of course, statuary we discuss was often divided into those statues that were erected to honor the dead and then some that were sort of to remind people of the cause for which they were erected. And we in our discussions talked about how could we make people understand that many of about how can we make people understand that many of these statues were not put up in the wake of the war, but they were put up in the 20th century with a rising White Nationalism and some of them were explicitly erected with signage that very clearly tried to promote a notion of white superiority and connect that to the confederate cause and connect that to the legacy of the American Civil War. I love participating in the round table for confederate statues, because having these dynamic scholars really going headtohead and toetotoe was really amazing to me. I was quite surprised that nenel nell paynter was so much in favor of local control, that the control should be by people in those spaces, those towns, those regions. Were now dealing with the fact that a State Government will pass a law saying that no statues can come down anywhere in the state. Thats not allowed, which is a blanket kind of tyranny that must be objected to, must be ending in the courts, if not elsewhere. But the issue is that local municipalities will get into debates. In charlottesville, Gary Gallagher was explaining to us that one statue might be a few hundred feet from another and one might be in a county and one in a city, and yet they were both within the same jurisdiction, and therefore there was this debate going on. But the idea that each generation would come up with a formula, each generation would come up with an idea about what they wanted to put up in their community. I was very excited by the idea that several artists have proposed putting up new statues. I participated in a forum at the speed museum in louisville, kentucky, when they proposed a forum looking at the statue issue. They had a very large confederate statue in front of the mu squee yes, maseum of Th University of kentucky. But the question is how can we put up something that not honors that absent statue, but what talks about what led to the statue being put up, what led to it being taken down. Richmond is known by its monument avenue and many controversies have surrounded it. I remember well when the statue of arthur ashe went up and the controversy over was it a good thing, a bad thing, was it artistic, political, historical. I think the best discussion of that was done by the late absolutely great tony horwitz in his book confederates in the attic. We have a new statue mounted with beautiful precision going up in that city. In our particular town of san antonio, we have a statue that was established by the udc in travis park in the center, and it was the local udc that wanted to get this common soldier put up. And it was so high, when i first came here i wasnt sure what was on top of it. But it was something people felt honored, the confederate past, they felt honored the White Supremacy value. The question of the disposition of the statue, when it was taken down, how it was taken down, where the statue is, continues to be a matter of debate here in this town. But we also have other great topics to debate, like theres a little building downtown called the alamo which a lot of my colleagues work on. And we are interested in having new interpretations, richer interpretations of these historical legacies. And im here in texas learning more and more about it. Certainly there are White Supremacists who are now pleading victimhood, that theyre being eliminated. There is a wide variety of language and disguises for this. But i think its important to say that we have an ethic in our society that is attention. We want equality and we want freedom, freedom to discriminate against others, freedom to put ourselves above others. Equality of opportunity. And as long as the equality of opportunity and speech and employment and a free society is maintained, that i think is very powerful. But when we have intimidation, terrorism, you know, in America Today were fighting a war on terror. We talk about that all the time in the headlines. I wish more headlines would address the terrorism domestically, because we are dealing with the fact that our society cannot maintain itself if we have people resorting to intimidation, silencing and violence. It mirrors what san antonio is. On one side its history and culture and a nod to the past. On the other side its a look forward to what san antonio has become, just the diversity and inclusivity and all the different kind of things that are happening. The city was created more than 300 years ago and it became a melting pot. The germans came in in the 1880s and they built small breweries at the time, and the Pearl Brewery kind of was born of that. The reason they came up with pearl was a german brewer saw in his beer the bubbles going up and they said those look like pearls. So it became Pearl Brewery. Pearl brewery was san antonio until 2001 and then it fell into disrepair a little bit and wasnt here for a little bit. A billionaire came in and just revamped this entire place. One of the great things about it is it kind of represents a very interesting part of what san antonio has become and that is a commitment to sustainability. When you look at some of the Different Things around here, just the items, the sculptures, when they tore apart the old brewery and did all the things they were doing to build this place back up, they took a lot of those old widgets and gizmos and everything they used to use to make the beer and they made them into sculptures and lanterns and chandeliers. Its a really cool way to look at how san antonio doesnt let anything go to waste. We are all about repurposing and reclaiming what has been history here in the city. One of the things that everyone always talks about about san antonio over the years, were legendary for texmex. One of the great imports was the Culinary Institute of america. Theres only three in the united states. We have ours in san antonio now and by bringing that in here and the latin american influence that the Culinary Institute focuses on, it has opened up so much in san antonio. Just the options and the diversity, not just texmex. We call it texnext because all of the Different Things that have happened here in san antonio. Around the city the diversity of Culinary Options has expanded so much but our commitment has always been to the diversity of cuisine that we have here in town. Just a couple of years ago, unesco gave us a creative city of gastronomy and its a commitment to the heritage that we have as far as our culinary and how it is an authentic representation of our area and people. Unesco honored that and designated the city in that regard and we were so proud to have that happen. We include the look at san antonio with a tour of one of the earliest structures in the city, the Spanish Governors Palace. Welcome to the Spanish Governors Palace. What youre looking at is the last visual remnants. The original facility was built in the 1720s and it was really the residence for the captain. What were looking at today is a ro mant sized version of what this building would have been. Again, it was the military headquarters and one of our first preservationists here in san antonio worked very hard when she identified this building as being the original garrison and preserving it. Its been many Different Things over time and its been added on over time as well. This is where it all began, a little oneroom house built for the captain. The original house was built with adobe bricks in 1722 based on a letter the governor wrote to the king in june of that year, talked about 25,000 adobe bricks they needed to make and 40 additional laborers they needed to hire to build the compound. You can see behind the wall at the top there, the adobe bricks, thats the original from 1722. The architect found this when they were doing the restoration and decided to open it up so people could see the original wall. This was the captains home, his office, everything in one room. Cooking was done outside, of course. And well go this way next. This room and the entrance and the room to the right to your left, was added in 1749 by a captain. When these rooms were added, there was not a door down here. This door was cut when the city did the restoration. The captain would walk out of his front door and go down and walk into his office. He kept his home and work separate. The city cut doors there so the visitors wouldnt have to go outside and come back around to another room. This was the main living area for the family. When these rooms were added onto the house, the captain moved all of his work items from his first little house to his new office at the end. And that room became the only bedroom in the house during the spanish era. This was, again, the living room, the dining room. Cooking was still done outside because of the fire hazard. This is the captains was the captains new office in 1749. He took care of business. Captains were also merchants. They would have items brought up from mexico and they would turn around and sell them to the families that lived here. So he would probably have some of the items on display here. The braziers were used to heat the rooms. They were bring in hot coals after the meals had been cook, put them in the pan, cover them lightly with ash to keep them from smoking, but it would still let the heat out to warm the room. Of course it wouldnt be as toasty as were used to, but it would be better than without it. This direction. This room was added on in the late 1700s, sometime between 1763 when the captain died and 1804 when the building was sold to captain perez. This was added on when captain menchaka and his son owned the building. This room we believe was built here to give the captains more space to display the goods that they were bringing up to sell to the families that lived here. They would have sold textiles, some leather goods, things that they couldnt make here in town. They would have them brought up from mexico. Preserving these structures is incredibly important. Its not just about the history. I really think its the story that people are interested in. Like i said, this building, not a whole lot of it is actually original, very little, in fact. But it tells a story. And people are able to come in and get an idea of what it would have been like, and also learn a little bit about san antonio throughout time. The story of preservation here in san antonio, how it may not always be accurate, it may be romanticised, but it gets people thinking. Its important for visitors and locals to just realize what a rich and varied history weve had. Tonight on American History tv beginning at 8 00 eastern, from American History tvs lectures and tv series, wesleys College Professor brenna greer teaches a class debunking some of the myths surrounding rosa parks and the bus boy boycott. American history tv on cspan3. Coming up this weekend, saturday, at noon eastern on the presidency, former white house curator on the tour with Jacqueline Kennedy and white house collections. At 6 00 p. M. American war historian on americnd two massim projects, the norris dam in tennessee and the wheeler dam in alabama. Exploring the american story. Watch American History tv this weekend on c span 3. . The cspan 3 city tour expands the country. Since 2011 weve been to over 200 communities across the nation. Our staff is staying close to home due to the coronavirus. Heres a look at our recent visit to Brian College station, texas. The city tour is on the road exploring the american story with support from our sudden link cable partners, we travel to brian in college station, texas. Coming up, the history of these neighboring cities sitting