Mount Rushmore

"What does this Mount Rushmore mean to us Indians? It means that these big white faces are telling us, "First we gave you Indians a treaty that you could keep these Black Hills forever, as long as the sun would shine, in exchange for all of the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana. Then we found the gold and took this last piece of land, because we were stronger. ... And because we like the tourist dollars, too, we have made your sacred Black Hills into one vast Disneyland. And after we did all this we carved up this mountain, the dwelling place of your spirits, and put our four gleaming white faces here. We are the conquerors.""

"In 1970, AIM, United Native Americans, and Lakota activists from South Dakota occupied Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills to bring attention to the 1868 Treaty and the fact that the land upon which the monument had been built was stolen. Activists pointed out that the monument itself was a form of vandalism-not "a shrine of democracy" but "a shrine of hypocrisy." Each president-Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt-had participated in Indigenous genocide and land theft. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy called Washington "Town Destroyer" for his role in the extirpation of their villages. Jefferson had advanced Indigenous removal policies and begun the expansion of the US empire west of the Mississippi. Lincoln had ordered the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota patriots after the 1862 US-Dakota War and oversaw the 1864 Long Walk for Navajos in the Southwest. Roosevelt had "nationalized" millions of acres of Indigenous lands for national parks. While symbolic, there was a growing militancy to the tactics of takeover and occupation. Across the United States, BIA headquarters became the targets for protest. Among the protestors' many concerns was the failure to uphold treaties. Critics in the federal government viewed treaty claims as mere rhetoric."

"Every face on Mt. Rushmore was a third party candidate at some point or another."

"This is our country at its very best. What an incredible achievement. Just the accomplishment and the beauty, it really does make one very proud to be an American."

"There could be no better place to celebrate America’s independence than beneath this magnificent, incredible, majestic mountain and monument to the greatest Americans who have ever lived. Today, we pay tribute to the exceptional lives and extraordinary legacies of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. I am here as your President to proclaim before the country and before the world: This monument will never be desecrated. These heroes will never be defaced, their legacy will never, ever be destroyed, their achievements will never be forgotten, and Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our freedom."