The Bexar County coordinator for the Texas National Movement, Karl Gleim, poses at the Alamo Monument after the monthly wreath laying in San Antonio, Texas. Alexander Thompson/Reporting Texas. Alexander Thompson/Reporting Texas.
On a balmy evening in November, a somber, slow-moving 68-year-old man removed his wide-brimmed cowboy hat and placed it over his heart. Moments earlier, Karl Gleim had laid a wreath in front of the most famous building in Texas. To Gleim, the wreath laying was a sacred act, one the retired state worker has participated in monthly for the last three years as a member of the Texas Nationalist Movement.
Under the guise of making the Alamo more visitor-friendly and inclusive, officials want to erase the Battle of the Alamo from the minds of future generations, Gleim said. The San Antonio City Council and George P. Bush, Commissioner of the Texas General Land Office, want to turn the Shrine of Texas Liberty, Gleim said, “into a United Nations-run, progressive lesson on the evils of Anglo imperialism.”