Mount Rushmore won’t face a revisionist reckoning anytime soon as statues of former Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson face renewed scrutiny, South Dakota’s governor said Wednesday.
Gov. Kristi Noem promised to protect the famed monument honoring Washington and Jefferson, as well as former Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, amid calls to remove statues of Confederate generals nationwide.
“This is no longer about equality,” Noem told Fox News on Wednesday. “This is a rewriting of our history and in South Dakota we won’t stand for it.”
Noem noted “some activity online where people have made threats” that Mount Rushmore could be the site of future protests, but she vowed to defend the huge granite likenesses in the wake of nationwide protests following the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.
“The more we focus on the flaws of these men that are on our mountain, the less likely we are to recognize the virtues and the lessons we can learn from their lives,” Noem said. “We will make sure that Mount Rushmore stays as majestic as it is today.”
read more here: https://nypost.com/2020/06/24/south-dakota-gov-on-mt-rushmore-removal-not-on-my-watch/
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