The Ugly Truth of America’s Most Famous Monument
The shine to democracy and its roots in white supremacy
Mount Rushmore is inherently unique among American monuments in that a lot of the experience of the monument is in getting there.
Reaching the Black Hills of South Dakota — “island in the plains” — entails a drawn-out drum roll from the endless, colorless, flat fields of the American plains (whichever way you approach from) to a dramatic, vibrant, twisting and awe-inspiring mountain landscape. The monument sits right in the middle of one of the oldest mountain chains on earth, formed around 2 billion years ago, nearly doubling the oldest of the Appalachians and rivaled only by some small and scattered mountain ranges in South Africa and the Guiana Highlands. Their name comes from the shadowy hue of the ponderosa pines that cover the sides of all but the steepest mountainsides; for they are mountains, if the far shorter Appalachians are, despite what the name suggests. And what rock faces are too steep for vegetation, rising out of the earth like giant fossilized teeth from some incomprehensible monster’s jaw, add an element of otherworldliness and undeniable mystique to the region.
And so, for time immemorial, the Black Hills have attracted people from far and wide; to seek wild game, to congregate with their kin, to…
