(PatriotWise.com) — Target is seemingly quietly funding campaigners trying to take down Mount Rushmore. The Target Foundation, a non-profit organization, has given an unknown amount of money to NDN Collective – “an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power.”
The group runs a campaign called LANDBACK which describes America as a country built upon white supremacy. It says Americans should give all public land back to indigenous people.
NDN Collective President and CEO Nick Tilsen said, “Mount Rushmore is an international symbol of white supremacy, and as people across America rightfully pull down statues of white supremacy, we have to look long and hard at how this national monument in the Black Hills upholds and maintains white supremacy on Indigenous lands.”
Tilsen also lashed out at President Trump for holding a rally under the iconic mountain on which the faces of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln are carved. He said Trump was guilty of “racist rhetoric” on the day and demanded the Black Hills of South Dakota, where the mountain is located, immediately be returned to the indigenous people of America.
Trump spoke at the site on July 4th, 2020. In his speech, the former President condemned the Black Lives Matter riots that saw statues and memorials torn down or defaced across the United States. He said the rioters had launched a “merciless campaign” to wipe out history, erase American values, indoctrinate children, and defame heroes.
Referring to Mount Rushmore and its Presidential carvings, Trump said, “This monument will never be desecrated, these heroes will never be defaced.”
The sculpture of the past Presidents was carved between 1927 and 1941. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum designed the memorial, officially known as the Shrine of Democracy. The heads of the famous Presidents are around 60 feet tall and they were chosen to represent the nation’s birth, growth, development, and preservation. The site attracts more than 2 million visitors every year.
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