Apr 06 2010
Demoting Thomas Jefferson
The Texas School Board of Education’s efforts to demote and downgrade Thomas Jefferson in terms of his contributing importance to this nation has made me the center of attention in some circles here on the San Francisco Peninsula. Some know that I’m a 6th generation Texan who had an ancestor who died at the Alamo (William Depriest Sutherland), whose great-great grandfather (William Menefee) helped write the Texas Declaration of Independence, and whose other great-great grandfather (Major George Sutherland, father of William) fought with Houston at San Jacinto. I also have graduate degrees from the Univ. of Southern California and Harvard, as well as a J.D. from Harvard Law. It is presumed, therefore, that I know something. Particularly so since I am descended from the Adamses of Massachusetts on my mother’s side, and it was John Adams who proudly signed the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797, where Article 11 expressly states, in part: “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion . . . .” So, one of the questions put to me is this: How does this attempt in Texas by these radical fundamentalist religious and political ideologues on the Texas School Board of Education to marginalize and misrepresent Thomas Jefferson’s importance to our republic differ from the misinformation disseminated by Hitler’s Nazi Party against Jews in the 1930′s? What is to be made of the attempt to “Christianize” American government, when such is directly contrary to our Constitution? Are both not intellectually and factually dishonest, they ask? Frankly, I don’t know how to answer the question. Can I get some help? Is the cell at work on the Texas School Board of Education similar to the communist cells that worked in this country at the height of the Cold War?
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2 responses so far
Good morning – ran across your blog as I was looking up info. about my grandfather, George Sutherland. I will be sure to keep up with your postings now that I’ve found you.
Hi Richard. I came across your blog while researching a letter from my Great Aunt Ruby (Ruby Menefee Hammock), written in 1947, that mentions William Sutherland at the Alamo. She calls him William Menefee Sutherland though, I suppose because his mother was Frances Menefee, from whom Aunt Ruby had a letter. My grandmother was also a Menefee. Her grandfather was William Menefee, who signed the Declaration and in latter years established a Menefee reunion in Rio Vista, TX, which continues to this day.
I knew that my Menefee ancestors had fought with Houston at San Jacinto, about the Scratch, and some family history over the years since. I knew that the defenders of the Alamo had bought time with their lives that enabled Houston to prepare his army and give them a chance against Santa Ana. Every visit I have made to the Alamo has been moving for me, in part because I know that if not for the sacrifice those men made I would likely not be here. But not till reading this 1947 letter did I realize that my great-great grandfather had a relative inside the Alamo buying that time. I wonder whether they knew where each other were?
Anyway, to some degree removed you and I are cousins.