How Mount Rushmore Became Mount Rushmore

This year, for the first time in more than a decade, there will be a major fireworks display to commemorate Independence Day at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

The sculpture features the faces of four American presidents — Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln — carved into a granite slope over the Black Hills of South Dakota. In the eight decades since the carving was completed, it has never been without controversy.

So when President Trump announced in May that he would attend the festivities there, it invited even more scrutiny of the monument’s history, the leaders it celebrates, the sculptor who created it and the land it towers over.

Native Americans have long criticized the sculpture, in part because it was built on what had been Indigenous land. And more recently, amid a nationwide movement against racism that has toppled statues commemorating Confederate generals and other historical figures, some activists have called for Mount Rushmore to close.