Who is rushmore

In the decades since, the memorial and its surroundings have served as a flash point for the treatment of Native Americans. Although the loss of the land was a far bigger concern for many Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, Hill says that some indigenous people wanted the site to recognize their history, too.

Native nations have also taken issue with the way Mount Rushmore told their story—and that of U. As Sprague points out, even Lincoln was enthusiastic about western expansion and, in , dispatched U. Related: Untangling the complex legacy of Teddy Roosevelt at the national park bearing his name. The civil rights movement of the s inspired a wave of protest among Native Americans across the country. In the summer of , protest came to Mount Rushmore when a few dozen activists from the organization United Native Americans scaled the memorial to demand the return of the Black Hills to the Lakota.

They camped atop the memorial for months—and then returned the following summer for a briefer protest that ended in their arrests. In , the long-running legal dispute finally reached the U. Supreme Court. In the landmark United States v. But the Lakota declined the compensation and have since advocated for the return of the Black Hills instead. On July 4, , more than a hundred demonstrators gathered at a Fourth of July rally held by President Donald Trump to protest the memorial and remind attendees that it was built on stolen land.

Related: How indigenous protesters helped spawn a conservation movement in British Columbia. Forces began campaigning to add faces to Mount Rushmore while the monument was still under construction.

Anthony on the rock. The idea that the memorial could somehow evolve would live on, with political partisans over the years suggesting adding John F. More recently, Trump has repeatedly crowed that he should be on the list. While some have pushed for Mount Rushmore to be expanded, others have demanded that it to be torn down. As the U. Related: These memorials are changing how we retell history. All rights reserved. When Rushmore asked a local man the name of a nearby mountain, he reportedly replied that it never had a name before, but from now on would be known as Rushmore Peak later Rushmore Mountain or Mount Rushmore.

In August , after the original sculptor he contacted was unavailable, Robinson contacted Gutzon Borglum, an American sculptor of Danish descent who was then working on carving an image of the Confederate General Robert E. Robinson had a history of disputes with those who commissioned the Lee project, and they fired Borglum, who left the sculpture unfinished.

Borglum convinced Robinson that the sculpture in South Dakota should depict George Washington and Abraham Lincoln , as that would give it national, and not just local, significance. He would later add Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt to the list, in recognition of their contributions to the birth of democracy and the growth of the United States.

During a second visit to the Black Hills in August , Borglum identified Mount Rushmore as the desired site of the sculpture.

Local Native Americans and environmentalists voiced their opposition to the project, deeming it a desecration of Sioux heritage as well as the natural landscape. After President Calvin Coolidge traveled to the Black Hills for his summer vacation, the sculptor convinced the president to deliver an official dedication speech at Mount Rushmore on August 10, ; carving began that October. To carve the four presidential heads into the face of Mount Rushmore, Borglum utilized new methods involving dynamite and pneumatic hammers to blast through a large amount of rock quickly, in addition to the more traditional tools of drills and chisels.

Some workers removed around , tons of rock from Mount Rushmore, which still remains in a heap near the base of the mountain. Though it was arduous and dangerous work, no lives were lost during the completion of the carved heads. On July 4 , , a dedication ceremony was held for the head of Washington.

Gutzon Borglum died in March , and it was left to his son Lincoln to complete the final details of Mount Rushmore in time for its dedication ceremony on October 31 of that year. The National Park Service, which maintains Mount Rushmore, records upwards of 2 million visitors every year. Meanwhile, many Sioux activists have called for the monument to be taken down, even as they continue to protest what they view as illegal U. Park History. Add new comment.

Comments Submitted by Bob Janiskee on June 2, - am. Submitted by admin on June 2, - am. Submitted by jessstryker on June 2, - am. Submitted by Heidi Rushmore Pastore on July 14, - pm. Submitted by Jeannene Haskell on May 1, - pm.

Submitted by Candance Rushmore on July 19, - am. Submitted by Nancy Burgess on August 11, - am. Submitted by Brenda on July 11, - pm. I know. That's the correct story. Add comment You must have JavaScript enabled to use this form.

Your name. Leave this field blank. Support Journalism about National Parks! National Parks Traveler is a c 3 nonprofit. I was a youthful attorney at the time, and was employed by these gentlemen early in to go to the Black Hills and secure options on the Etta mine, and other cassiterite locations. My mission required me to remain several weeks in the Hills, and to return there on two or three later occasions in that year and in Part of my time was spent among prospectors at Harney, and at a log cabin built in that neighborhood.

In my life among these rough, but kindly, men I conformed to their ways, and, may I say it with becoming modesty, was in favor with them. I was deeply impressed with the Hills, and particularly with a mountain of granite rock that rose above the neighboring peaks. On one occasion while looking from near its base, with almost awe, at this majestic pile, I asked of the men who were with me for its name. They said it had no name, but one of them spoke up and said "We will name it now, and name it Rushmore Peak.

Some time after the incident above narrated I was told that the name and identification of the Rock, or Mountain, was recorded in the Land Office in Washington at the instance of some of the good friends referred to, but I have never sought to verify this feet.