The Mount Rushmore memorial, which was completed in 1941 by the American sculptor Gutzom Borglum, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, sits on the Black Hills, a millenniums-old site that is sacred to the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, Omaha, Arapaho, Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache tribes.
metmike: So now, it's not just a matter of what the the statue or monument might represent(out past culture), if the person who built it was a racist, that gets added to the story to strengthen the case to remove it.
The Republican governor says that this “troubling point in our nation’s history” has “moved from calls for reform to violent riots and looting [and] now to a radical movement committed to undoing our nation’s history” that have “nothing to do with equality of justice”. She says the state will partner with the federal government to ensure that stringent security measures are in place during Trump’s visit, and that it will remain diligent in protecting the memorial after the event.
She adds: “I want to make one thing clear: the men honoured on Mount Rushmore weren’t perfect. They all had flaws but they all had tremendous virtues as well. We can learn from their successes, and we can also learn from their mistakes.”