Mount Rushmore in South Dakota is on land stolen from the Sioux Indians. (Image: Kathryn Reed)
Mount Rushmore used to be a place I would highly recommend people visit when they were in South Dakota. I would emphasize going to the lighting ceremony.
I was back there in June during a family reunion with the expectation that would be my last visit.
I can no longer celebrate the desecration of sacred Indian land and the destruction of the environment.
The U.S. government with the Treaty of 1868 permanently promised the Sioux Indians land that included the Black Hills of South Dakota. Once gold was discovered a couple years later the treaty became worthless as the government allowed prospectors to run roughshod over the Sioux land.
Rushmore was constructed between 1927 and 1941—at a time when environmental laws were weaker and Native people had even less of a voice than they do today.
I doubt this sculpture of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln will ever go away. It’s not like granite can be replanted.
I’d like to think nothing like it will be built again on sacred and public land. That would be a good thing.
I’m all for recognizing individuals for their contributions to society. It’s how we honor them that matters, as well as where. Who does the work matters as well. Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor behind Mount Rushmore, had white supremacist leanings.
Today, Rushmore is a national monument under the care of the National Park Service.
I wonder what it would become if we gave the land back to the Indians. Would they chisel away the faces? Would that be such a bad thing?
Mount Rushmore is a place I’ve been going to since I was a kid because my grandparents lived in Rapid City, my parents were high school sweethearts there, and this area is where so many of our family reunions are. But none of that means I need to keep visiting a place rooted in hate, lies and deception. Where we go, how we spend our time and money—it matters, it says and means something. Tradition is not a reason to continue this ritual of visiting Rushmore every time I’m in South Dakota. I’m done and would hope my family (and everyone else) would come to this same conclusion.
Made me think immediately of this:
https://news.northeastern.edu/2025/06/30/donald-trump-face-carved-mount-rushmore/
I have always felt this way. I honor the creativity that it took to make it happen, I abhor the loss of natural habitat and tribal land taken (yet again). We drove there and in the end couldn’t get out of the car to go see it – from the parking lot!
Yes, we must acknowledge the injustices Native Americans endured, including the breaking of the 1868 Treaty. We should never whitewash history. But erasing monuments, or turning away from them, does not heal wounds. History should be faced head-on, not abandoned.
We don’t honor these four presidents because they were flawless. We honor them because, through struggle and sacrifice, they helped shape a nation committed to something bigger than themselves. That’s what Mount Rushmore commemorates—and why it should continue to be visited, studied, and respected.
Well said, Dan. I totally agree with every word