CRAZY HORSE MEMORIAL VS. MOUNT RUSHMORE | BY: LAINEY FLANAGAN
May 12, 2020
Many people may not know about the Crazy Horse Memorial, but it is as iconic of a memorial as Mount Rushmore. Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore were built on the same land and have a long history of the United States relationship with the indigienous people. Mount Rushmore was built in the Black Hills, which was the land of the Lakota people. It only felt right to Korczak Ziolkowski to build a memorial to honor the fight the Indians put up. He felt they deserved to be honored on their land. By the time it is done, it will be the largest statue in the world (“Crazy Horse Memorial”). The leader of the fight, Crazy Horse, was a hero to their community and his wisdom and strength led his people through this terrible time. Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial are both built in the Black Hills, creating it to be a popular tourist attraction and now bringing the attention the Crazy Horse Memorial deserves.
Originally, the government accepted that the Black Hills belonged to the Lakota. They stepped back and respected that it was not their land to take. Though, soon after, it was discovered that there was gold on the land. This caused the government to immediately seize the land, and take it away from the indigienus people. Once they claimed this land, they had the right to do whatever they wanted. This resulted in the building of Mount Rushmore. It was supposed to symbolize a ‘Shrine of Democracy’. After this, people were upset that they were close to the Lakota tribe and indigenous people and decided it was their right to make their own memorial, honoring the man that symbolized their culture. This stimulated the controversy between the two memorials and ended up reflecting the unfair treatment of indigeonous people by the government (Cary). These two memorials felt like they were pinned against each other.
Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial are equally as important, just to different groups of people. So why does Mount Rushmore receive all the fame? They received all the fame and fortune originally because this was the first time anyone had completed this type of work. No one before had carved faces into a mountain. The faces were so beautifully carved, people were in awe of the work. People also viewed these men as heros to the United States. The people of Black Hills did not see this as a piece of art. They believed the land was sacred and thought it was wrong to ruin the stone. The people building Mount Rushmore were ruining natural creations. A scholar dedicated to the Crazy Horse Memorial said, “the site gave evidence of a succession of man-made systems mired in abandoned hopes” (Fisher). The land did not belong to either of them, it belonged to ‘Mother Earth’. They were carving into their land to represent the conquering of a continent, even though the indigenous people were there first.
When Ziolkowski began the project of building the Crazy Horse Memorial, he did not want any government money because he felt they did not deserve to be a part of this memorial. He felt they took advantage of that when building Mount Rushmore, and Crazy Horse needed to be seperate from that. The government did not respect the land of the Lakota people and took advantage of them. Though, some of the indigienous people fought back at the beginning of the project. They felt that Crazy Horse himself would not want this and it would just be giving in to what the government did to them. Once they realized it was going to be more than just a monument, they approved of the idea. They felt comfort in knowing there was going to be an educational purpose because they were adding in a museum aspect (Cary). It was decided that since Mount Rushmore was already a part of their land and they could not do anything about it, they should just add to it. The goal was to make their monument just as important as Mount Rushmore because it represents Crazy Horse and his leadership as well as many Native American tribes across the United States that have been displaced because of the government.
The goal of Crazy Horse Memorial has the same goal as Mount Rushmore, to honor these men for their significant accomplishments. Crazy Horse led his people with grace and humility and people need to remember how important the Indians are to the history of the United States. The Crazy Horse Memorial represents another part of U.S. history. Mount Rushmore is a representation of the government and democracy, but the Crazy Horse remembers the people and groups that were some of the first people to live on United States soil. They represent a major part of history that is not as acknowledged as it should be. By putting these memorials on the same sites can represent the reuniting of two groups that should be united as one. The government needs to help the Indians survive and support them through all their hardships. Except, there is a case of American exceptionalism that has come with Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore and many Americans believe it is significantly better than Crazy Horse and anything else. American exceptionalism has developed over time through the conquering of land and it is exposed in this situation.
This relationship between the two monuments is controversial and has a negative history associated with it. Neither monument appreciates the other because of the way they were built and both sides did it for questionable reasons. Still today, the Crazy Horse Memorial is still struggling to be funded. They ask for donations and government money, but it is still not enough. This can be viewed as unfair to the Crazy Horse Memorial, how can they not afford this on their land that the government stole? The building of the memorial has faced many hardships over the years, but everyone's rooting for them to finish up and become as appreciated as Mount Rushmore.