Controversial ‘1836 Project’ tackles Texas’ complex history with race

Outraged by a 2019 New York Times project focused on slavery, Texas leaders answered with the Texas 1836 project. “We must never forget why Texas became so exceptional in the first place,” Gov. Greg Abbott said at the announcement touting the goal of “patriotic education.” Critics predicted a committee — appointed by Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan, the state’s top Republicans and formed to write a handout for people receiving new Texas driver’s licenses — would omit historical controversies, racial unrest and social and economic disparities in the brochure. But the proposed brochure approved by the committee last week uses some form of the word “slave” 11 times. All 15 pages of the document are posted on the Texas Education Agency website.

A saying in the early 1800s, reads the draft, was “Texas is heaven for men and dogs but hell for women and oxen.” “This was doubly true for the enslaved,” the next line states. If funded by the Legislature, the “welcome to Texas” pamphlet will be given to people receiving their first Texas driver’s license. “This is not a chronicle or the last word on Texas history. But perhaps this is a first word on the Texas story that many people will have heard,” said history scholar Don Frazier, director of the Texas Center at Schreiner University in Kerrville and chair of a subcommittee that guided the text through six iterations.