By: Matthew Justin Davis
Hennepin County Library hardcover 269 pages plus acknowledgments, notes, and index
Published: 2025
Genre: non-fiction, history
It's a bit of a misnomer to call this a biography, but I really like this author's work. My friend Kathy told me about this book and how it's a South Dakota One Book title. I absolutely love the idea of community read books! I won't probably engage in any discussions on this book, other than with her, but I just got excited about the program.
I marked lots and lots of pages. There was a lot in this book!
Page xv-xvii: Through debates over American history and how to memorialize it, deep fissures in national identity were exposed, revealing a country unable - and in some quarters unwilling - to confront the darkness of our national past.
Davis is referring to President Trump's speech at Mount Rushmore in 2020 and the protests against him. There are many ways to look at history and this author does a great job of examining events from different perspectives.
Page xvi-xvii: Every American generation faces unique challenges, but the American children of this pandemic era have been born into a fast-moving narrative whose current stakes are the future of our democracy. . . . To think about our past, how we represent that past in memorials, and to consider the United States we are developing for our children.
There's a lot to unpack here. What will the adults of the 2040s take away from their childhood about what it means to be American? As an educator and a grandma, how am I helping to shape children's understanding about our country?
Page 5: The memorial appeared smaller in the space of my imagination, too. Seeing it, I felt as one does when encountering an object or place from childhood, when one realizes physical scales struggle to contain the outsized emotional influence of memory.
If you've never experienced this, it's wild how something was huge in your memory is far less impressive when revisited in your adulthood. The picture on the cover of this book made me think, "It looks so small from that perspective."
Page 8: She moved on to Rushmore and said four different groups offer interpretations of the symbolic sculpture we were staring at from the terrace.
Davis is referring to a tour guide. The four groups are veterans (freedom and patriotism), National Park Service (same plus a celebration of ideals), Mount Rushmore Society (preservation, education, outreach), and the Indigenous community (disrespect). The more I learn about the Black Hills being sacred to First People, the more disgusted I get by the greedy, sneaky tactics used to steal that land once minerals or other valuable things were found. Historically, white people have been incredibly awful to Native Americans. (My opinion.)
Page 19 - So many names! I couldn't track all of this. Tunkasila Sakpe Paha (the Six Grandfathers), Hinhan Kaga (Owl Maker), Harney Peak (Woman Killer), Igmu Tanka Paha, . . . I love that the author did so much thorough research, but I just kept reading. I still struggle with saying Minneapolis' Lake Bde Maka Ska.
Page 20: If you put a piece of paper by its mouth, you understand its eponymous origins: a breeze wafts in or out depending on atmospheric conditions. It feels like the earth is breathing.
Wind Cave is awesome! We took the boys there in 1999 (I think) and it was so incredible to experience. We also went to Jewel Cave. It's fun when reading a book to make a personal connection.
Page 22: . . . wrote the great Lakota historian, scholar, and writer Vine Deloria, Jr., in his book God Is Red.
I have too many library (and other) books to read right now, but I would love to check this one out!
Page 27: I have ample time to observe, stuck as I am behind a slow-moving red Dodge Durango SUV with a bumper sticker that reads: "You Choose: Gun Owner or Victim." I choose not to honk to move him along.
This made me laugh and reflect. Too many gun rights people are fanatical, in my opinion. Why the passion for firearms? I can't relate. Avoiding road rage is a great idea, though. I like the author's voice in this book.
Page 33: By bestowing mediocre gifts and misunderstanding leadership and tribal dynamics, Lewis and Clark had stepped into a complicated situation they tried to contain through threat of force. This combination of misunderstanding and excessive violence was to be a trend in Lakota-American relations for the next century as Americans began their rapid settling of the West.
Oh, our history in dealing with Native Americans is so, so awful. Greed, arrogance, and a false sense of superiority haven't faded in the intervening years . . .
Page 36: The summer after Harney's campaign, Lakota leaders met near Bear Butte to discuss how to handle this increasing influx of Americans, wasicu, or "fat white men" as they called them.
It was nice to laugh at something instead of just being sad or appalled. I love that the Lakota had a term for this!
Page 41: The confusion is funny because it's believable - Americans, like many people, are often selective in the history they choose to understand.
Davis is referring to the town of Custer, SD. Because it's an homage to Custer's Last Stand, people think the battle happened there. His reference to history people "choose to understand" made me think about my lack of deeper understanding on many historical events. This is an area for growth for me!
Page 42: The military argued that the treaty gave license for government-sponsored personnel to move through Lakota land on official business, so the expedition was launched. But while the primary public rationale was militaristic, the unspoken reasons were largely economic.
The author has done extensive research. His notes and references cover more than twenty-five pages. There were letters that show exactly what the intentions were. Our government was underhanded, lying to and stealing from the American Indian tribes that we "negotiated" treaties with.
Page 46: The impression, with the benefit of history, is of a young man who will say anything to get what he wants.
General George Custer seems to have been a bit of a "golden boy," but the kind of person who is a snake in the grass.
Page 52: "Custer was depicted as a fallen Christian knight, a shining star of civilization cut down by demonic savages."
This quotation is from a book by Joe Jackson, Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary. So . . . talk about revisionist history. People at the time were lamenting his death and revering Custer as a "fallen Christian knight" while he had attacked and killed women and children. Ugh.
Part 1 was titled "Origins." Part 2 (page 67) was "Growth, Loss, and Hope (1877 - 1925)." Part 3 (page 125 was "The Making of Mount Rushmore." Part 4 (page 185) is "The Meaning of Mount Rushmore: An Exploration in Four Questions and One Event." Then there are over thirty pages of acknowledgments, notes, and index.
<I wrote the above on May 2. I have to return the book today June 9 because there's a waiting list and I've renewed it the maximum number of times. I'm on page 185 - the start of part 4. Ugh!>
Page 76: The choice upset southern Dakotans, who perceived their northern neighbors as living in a backwater, and it spurred them to push for two separate states divided at the Seventh Standard Parallel."
I didn't realize that there originally was only going to be one state called Dakota. History is not my strength area!
Page 82: It is a historical trauma many in this community believe is celebrated, or at least ignored, at Mount Rushmore.
The history of what white people have done to indigenous people in this country is truly horrific. Boarding schools and the destruction of children is only one huge example.
Page 90: In a crude way, these were twin policies: land policy and ownership for the adults; education for the children. Of course, underlying both these approaches were deep beliefs in the supremacy of the white race and stereotypes of the Native American as wild, lazy, unlearned, and dangerous.
Some people will argue that the people pushing these policies "meant well," but good intentions and evil practices don't balance. On the next page, I learned more about the Dawes Act. Oh my! There may be a reason I'm not a student of history. It saddens me that time and again, greed and selfishness win out over doing the right thing for the greater good.
I marked a bunch of pages in chapter 7 of part 2 . . . basically, Gutzon Borglum was very buddy buddy with the KKK. He worked on a stone carving in Georgia and was supported by (and supportive of) the KKK. A burning cross . . . the cross of Jesus Christ . . . used as a symbol of white supremacy and hatred. This stuff makes my stomach turn.
Page 107: Memorials and monuments are claims to a specific version of that past.
Ooh. There's a lot of room for discussion on this one!
Page 117: In large measure because of their contribution to the war effort, the U.S. Congress finally gave citizenship to Native Americans - the last group in the United States to receive the designation, even though they were the first ones on the continent.
This is so sad. It makes me think of Joseph Bruchac's Code Talkers. How awful that the people who were here well before the first settlers were the last to be accepted as citizens!
Page 135: Borglum responded days later with a long, scathing letter about the people of South Dakota and painted himself as a martyr.
He sounds like a real gem.
Page 143-4: His preferred method of working was to be solely in charge - he wanted control of artistic direction, employment decisions, and financial spending. When he felt stymied in one or more of these categories, he lashed out, sometimes in person, but more frequently in letters.
Some people are just control freaks. Borglum was a bit of an egomaniac.
Page 149: If the effects of the Great Depression were widespread, they were particularly ominous for Native Americans. At Pine Ridge, the annual income in 1931 for a family of five was just over $150, about the equivalent of living off $3,000 today . . . "
This author has done such an extensive amount of research, interviews, and analysis. I'm impressed.
Page 161: When people first see Mount Rushmore, most are shocked by its size, though not in the way they expect. Most find it smaller than their minds had conceived . . .
I love that there was a photo section in the book! So many wonderful historical photos. And yes, for a huge carving, it kind of looks small.
Page 166: The bosun chairs he designed never gave way or caused a man to fall, and in the sixteen years of Rushmore's construction, not a single man died on the job. (In contrast, ninety-six men officially died building Hoover Dam.)
This makes me curious to learn more about the building of the Hoover Dam. Kudos to Borglum that there weren't fatalities on his build site.
Page 169: In other words, nothing like Mount Rushmore will ever be built again. This is both a little sad and oddly comforting.
Page 171: ... though many made suggestions, he never seriously considered other faces on the memorial.
Borglum's work at Mount Rushmore is finished. I remember in the 1980s hearing people talk about adding Reagan's face to the monument. And now our current POTUS seems to think he deserves to be there. Just no.
Page 180 had a pretty balanced look at Borglum - the good and the bad. Again, I appreciate this author's work and the fact that he can see things from more than just his own point of view.
<All of the above was written May 2 and June 9. Below is what I'm adding on 7.15.2026.>
Page 185: In 2013, Kibbe McGaa Conti, whose hungry relative was incinerated in the boiler room of the Rapid City Indian Boarding School (RCIS) while trying to heat up a stolen potato, was asked to spearhead the seventy-fifth anniversary of the opening of the Sioux Sanatorium . . .
Conti is a key person in the ongoing saga of telling the truth about the past and recognizing that different people tell these stories from very different perspectives. Another amazing person is Amy Sazue, the first executive director of the Remembering the Children Memorial.
Page 188: ". . . I want my decisions to be sound and to be building something good and not contributing to the chaos that already exists here." Sazue told me that Lakota people are supposed to think seven generations behind and seven generations ahead.
I love that concept! Seven generations ahead and behind - how different our decision-making might look! I don't even know who were my ancestors seven generations ago . . . I could trace it with my maternal grandfather, but . . . now I'm curious! I love family tree stuff. And I really have trouble imagining seven generations from me. Joshua and Benjamin are two generations away from me . . . will they marry and have children? Will they become grandparents, great-grandparents? That's hard for me to picture! (Just because the future is so open and so many things can happen. They are little kids right now.)
Page 190: She realized that, like her grandfather, she negotiates her role as executive director and community leader . . . by being a diplomat. Her audiences are multiple and conflicting: elders who want to protect the graves; activists who want land back from treaties; politicians, police, and local business leaders whose support she wants and needs; the non-Native community that can feel threatened by the perceived righting of historical wrongs.
Sazue has a lot on her shoulders! Reading about this made me really want to go in person and see the memorial to the children who died in the boarding school.
Page 192: The Remembering the Children sculpture he manifested with the Lakota elders will be cast collaboratively with Indigenous artists. Tiwahe, "family" in Lakota, is set to be installed on the memorial site next year.
I can understand why Indigenous people would be upset that a non-Native (artist Lamphere) was chosen to sculpt the memorial, but I think Sazue navigated that issue tactfully and wisely. I put a link to the website, but haven't spent much time digging around there. I'd really rather go see in person!
Page 192: . . . it's very likely that Crazy Horse - who refused to have his picture taken during his lifetime - would be aghast at having his face carved into the Black Hills.
Twenty-some years ago when we visited the Black Hills, I was a champion of the Crazy Horse carving (to counteract the Mount Rushmore theme) . . . but the more I learn about the complicated history of the relationships between whites and Indigenous people, the more my head swims. I'm fascinated by the "land back" movement . . . and should learn more about Red Earth, where our lake place is.
Page 194: At its conclusion, Abraham Lincoln ordered the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota men on December 26, 1962, still the largest mass execution in American history.
Oh. I knew about the horrors of the thirty-eight. But I didn't realize it was Abraham Lincoln who ordered it. That makes me unspeakably sad. He's one of my favorite U.S. presidents. What was he thinking? (And why am I just learning this historical connection in my sixties?!)
Page 213: His groundbreaking career culminated in 2004, when he became the first Native American superintendent of Mount Rushmore.
The author's time and interviews with Gerard Baker are one of my favorite parts of the book. What a fascinating man! It sounds like he was just what that community needed at the time, though he certainly ruffled lots of feathers. (On page 218, there's a story of him being told there's no room available at a hotel. When his white wife, Mary Kay, goes in, the room is rented to her. "This type of casual racism was maddening, though unsurprising.")
Page 215: The opening of the 212-foot Garrison Dam flooded that community and the surrounding area. All told, 94 percent of the reservation's agricultural land was flooded, and 80 percent of families living on the reservation, including the Bakers, were displaced. It wasn't simply that the dam drowned crops and homes; it flooded graves, historical sites, and generational memory.
Again and again, white people in power positions make decisions to benefit themselves and harm the people who were here before all us immigrants! And I feel as though with our current POTUS, we're going further back into this mentality - money for me and my kind is more important than other people's lives, especially if they have darker skin . . . it makes me want to scream.
Page 229: Land Back - both the phrase and the mission - has become a clarion call for many Native communities across the country, especially in the lands of the Lakota Nation, . . .
Again, this is a concept and movement I want to learn more about.
Page 233 had an error (?) that drove me crazy! He goes from "Mark" to "Nick" without explanation. I read and re-read the paragraphs before and after, looking to see what I'd missed. Ken Tilsen is the dad. Nick is the son who is referenced a LOT after this. But look at what I'm talking about:
Who the heck is Mark Tilsen?! And why did I waste so much time pointing this out? I really need to just finish this over-long blog entry!
Okay, I had never before heard of the Monument Lab doing the "National Monument Audit" for the Mellon Foundation (page 238). I would definitely love to check this out! Fascinating stuff.
Page 245: "What can burn?" Trump asked. "It's stone!"
Ugh. Kristi Noem and Donald Trump. Fireworks at Mount Rushmore. Arrogant attitudes and disregard for the environment, Native peoples, etc. I'm not surprised. Just disappointed that he keeps getting what he wants. And how does he not realize that there are other considerations? (Trees and grasses can burn, fireworks debris littering the ground, etc.) There was so much more about Governor Noem and the reservations . . . but I need to move on.
Page 255: "Keystone that day was a full-out Trump rally. People were running up to our cars, telling us to go home. Screaming at us! And we were yelling back like, 'WE ARE HOME!'"
Sazue is pointing out that the Native people (who had lived there for millenia) were being told by MAGA-type people to get out of their homeland. How ironic! She compared the "Trump rally" atmosphere to the feeling of being at a "Ku Klux Klan rally." Ugh.
Page 261: About a month after President Trump's visit to Mount Rushmore, the New York Times reported that in the previous year, 2019, before the coronavirus and the protests over American history that would coalesce at Mount Rushmore, a "White House aide" had reached out to Governor Noem asking about the process of including more presidents on the memorial.
His arrogance has no bounds.
Page 263: For as artistically adept and technically innovative as Mount Rushmore is, for as moving and powerful it can be for veterans and lovers of liberty and democracy, for as fun as it can be to bring the family to see the faces and enjoy an ice cream, I just don't think that Mount Rushmore belongs on the mountain of Rushmore.
The author is pretty clear in his opinion and in sharing both the positives and negatives of this place. I appreciate that. There is more that I bookmarked (and removed). Why do I feel a need to comment on everything?! This book was a more challenging read - lots of history and information. Like I said, I don't think I'll be part of a discussion group. But it does make me want to learn more. I will probably be coming back to this entry to revisit some of the things that most piqued my interest.
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