The Alamo and Linda Ellerbee, Nickelodeon's New Historian

Linda Ellerbee strikes again.

Linda Ellerbee,

Nickelodeon’s new historian

She’s now hosting a “news bump” for Nickelodeon, the kids’ television channel. The segment recently ran a piece on the Alamo. The short clip feautured a young girl who said that the real story behind the Alamo was that the battle was about slavery.

Thanks to the Wide Awakes for the heads-up. Here’s a link to the Nick site where they were running a clip of the piece — I just checked and they’ve now replaced it with another one. When you search for “Alamo” on the site, nothing at all comes up. Still, you can see the format and Ellerbee in action.

My prediction: with Ellerbee’s involvement this won’t be the last time this Nickelodeon segment causes heartburn. . .

So here’s text of what the piece said (thanks to WorldNetDaily):

What you may not know is that at the time, Texas was part of Mexico.

By the early 1800s, a lot of people living in San Antonio were farmers who brought their slaves with them. In 1829, Mexico abolished slavery and what followed was years of conflict between farmers who wanted to keep their slaves and Mexican authorities. This conflict led up to the battle for the Alamo.

In the end, Gen. Santa Ana and 5,000 Mexican soldiers surrounded the Alamo and all the defenders of the mission were killed.

So, when you remember the Alamo, think about the soldiers, the battle and the true story behind it.

This particularly offended me because, you may remember, we just took the Penta-Posse to the Alamo on our grand western tour, and were inspired by the bravery of the Texians in confronting General Santa Anna. So when I was watching the clip yesterday, I called them in to see it.

Immediately, the Dude says: “Hey, I saw that on Nickelodeon.”

Great.

I asked them if there was anything strange about it, and fortunately, the Dreamer was able to pick out the slavery bit as not matching up with what she had learned at the Alamo itself.

So what’s the truth? Is Nickelodeon right? Are we getting revisionist, whitewashed history at the Alamo?

Michelle Malkin also picked up this story and here’s the information she got directly from the head historian at the Alamo, Dr. Bruce Winders:

Nickelodeon contacted me before the episode ran to “run her remarks by me.” I replied that it was an extreme interpretation that was very one-sided as well as inaccurate. They replied that they wanted to get a Hispanic opinion about the battle. I replied that an opinion can be wrong, as in this case. I pointed out that most viewers would not be able to tell that she was just expressing her opinion and take what she said at face value. I asked them what was more important for the media: fact or opinion. They ran the story as it was. I’d suggest that you contact Nickelodeon to let them know you found the piece objectionable.

Michelle lists the Nickelodeon addresses at her site; I think contacting them is a really good idea.

Additionally, over at Pro-Life Blogs, via JivinJehoshaphat they are reporting pro-choice ads running in the local Grand Rapids area on Nickelodeon.