Growing up in the Black Hills, I’ve always hated Mt. Rushmore. And since moving back to South Dakota, I seen how obedient we’ve become. Rapid City is known as “Racist City” and we have statues of all 44 presidents on each corner downtown and Trump Shops where trucks w/confederate flags gather.
I know there are a lot of white folks who do not acknowledge that they are living on stolen lands...so this spot light is exactly what I had hoped would come to surface! Thanks Gov Noem
•••FACES OF MOUNT RUSHMORE•••
George Washington:
* 317 slaves (between him & his wife)
* Commanded his troops to “extirpate” Indians/native peoples who refused to sell their lands (extirpate: to destroy completely; wipe out)
* His plantation, Mount Vernon, was built on land that had been native communities and villages for thousands of years.
* Iroquois peoples nicknamed him Conotocaurius (Town Destroyer; Devourer of Villages)
Thomas Jefferson:
* 175 slaves inherited & 20 purchased
* Impregnated a 14-year-old slave, Sally Hemings, and went in to have 6 children with her
* Created Forced Indian Removal Policy, pushing all tribes from their eastern ancestral lands to the west.
* Created Civilization Program to guarantee the security of white Americans (colonizers) by tying native peoples to treaties.
Theodore Roosevelt:
* White Nationalist/Supremacist
* Believed in the elimination of all Native and African peoples from the US through eugenics (manipulating human reproduction)
* Removed native inhabitants of 60 million hectares of timber land in the United States and 34 million hectares of mineral lands in Alaska to set it aside as US conservation land.
Abraham Lincoln:
* 38 +2 : The number of Sioux/Dakota that he hanged in the Dakota War (Minnesota)
* 2,000 : The number of Navajos and Apaches that were killed after he forced them out of New Mexico Territory (forcing the Navajo to march 450 brutal miles to Bosque Redondo)
* Hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho died in The Sand Creek Massacre (Colorado)
* Created the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, ensuring the construction of the transcontinental railroad, which led to the significant loss of land, natural resources, lifestyle, and culture for MANY tribal people.
* Said these words, “If I could save the union without freeing any slave, I would do it...”. He was NOT an advocate of abolishing slavery; he just wanted to save the Union... the white man’s Union.
ProtestBlog.org does not believe that we are going to see Mt. Rushmore blown apart anytime soon in a democratic society. At the very least, this does highlight the singular importance of the Crazy Horse statue under construction not that far away. Does this statue have federal funding, it should!
At least this last video suggests something tangilbe and constructive in the here and now, harnessing the power of Mt. Rushmore to the common good, the fight to save us all.
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