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TIL The Sculptor of Mount Rushmore Had Ties to the KKK (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by TrippyFocus@lemmy.ml to c/til@lemmy.ca

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Gutzon Borglum was the sculptor and was involved with the KKK. He was chosen because he was the sculptor of the "Shrine to the Confederacy” which was the inspiration for Mount Rushmore.

Guess it shouldn’t be too surprising given the way the land was taken from the local tribes despite it being sacred.

Credit to this comment by u/alcoholicorn that drove me to look it up.

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[–] Crikeste@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

Don’t forget to mention that the United States did a genocide so thoroughly that Hitler called it “the first great cleansing”. We were his ‘inspiration’, per se.

And on the topic of Teddy (you’ll notice language very similar to that of the Nazis):

When Theodore Roosevelt was a young man, he travelled to the great plains where he conducted several hunting trips.

When the visit was over, he wrote a book about his experiences.

In this book, we can read the following words about the American buffalo and the so-called Indian problem:

“The destruction [of the buffalo] was the condition precedent upon the advance of white civilization…

“Above all, the extermination of the buffalo was the only way of solving the Indian question…

“The disappearance [of the buffalo] was the only method of forcing them to at least partially to abandon their savage mode of life.

“From the standpoint of humanity at large, the extermination of the buffalo has been a blessing.”

Source: Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman