Tribal Leaders Call for the Removal of Mount Rushmore

• Chairman Harold Frazier of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe is calling for the complete removal of the faces carved in Mount Rushmore.
• This is not the first protest made by the Great Sioux Nation for the removal of Mount Rushmore, as other leaders of the four Sioux Tribes have made similar petitions in the past.

Chairman Harold Frazier of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe is calling for the complete removal of the faces carved in what we now know as Mount Rushmore National Memorial, as he believes it is desecrating a sacred area in Black Hills, Keystone, South Dakota.

In a statement released by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Frazier says, “Nothing stands as a greater reminder to the Great Sioux Nation of a country that cannot keep a promise of treaty than the faces carved into our sacred land on what the United States calls Mount Rushmore.”

This statement is believed to be regarding the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The treaty is about how the U.S. government promised the Sioux territory, including the Black Hills in perpetuity. Eventually, the perpetuity was broken when gold was found in the mountains and the federal government forced the natives to relinquish the Black Hills portion of the Sioux territory.

He called the presidents – whose faces were later carved on Mount Rushmore – as ‘molesters’ possibly in reference to their strong anti-Native policies and actions, as published on Indian Country Today.

“The United States of America wishes for all of us to be citizens and a family of their republic, yet when they get bored with looking at those faces we are left looking at our molesters,” Frazier said.

From its creation, Mount Rushmore has been a story of struggle and desecration for the natives and the four presidents carved in the hill are not without negative symbolism.

For the longest time, several leaders from the four bands of Sioux Natives have petitioned the removal of the faces of the four presidents.

Earlier this year in June, Oglala Sioux President Julian Bear Runner said Mt. Rushmore is a “great sign of disrespect” and should be “removed.”

This time around, it’s Harold Frazier of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe who even offered to remove the abomination “free of charge to the United States.”

Read the full statement here:

The petition is receiving some support from netizens. Here are some of them: