South Dakota Eager for Trump's Statue Garden Near Mount Rushmore Despite Local Opposition
Source: US News and World Report/AP
June 24, 2025, at 12:08 a.m.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Officials in South Dakota are pushing hard to build President Donald Trump 's proposed National Garden of American Heroes in the Black Hills near Mount Rushmore, but the effort has sparked a backlash from Indigenous groups who see the area as sacred.
A mining company has offered to donate 40 acres (16 hectares) less than a mile from Mount Rushmore, where massive sculptures of four of the nation's most prominent presidents are carved out of granite.
“The Black Hills mark the perfect location to achieve your vision for the National Garden of American Heroes,” Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden wrote in a letter to Trump. “Together, we will make this project happen in a way that honors America’s heroes, takes advantage of South Dakota’s natural beauty, and incorporates the most iconic monument to our greatest leaders: Mount Rushmore National Memorial.”
But the Black Hills have long been the subject of disputes between South Dakota and its tribes. The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie recognized that the Black Hills belong to the Sioux people, but the U.S. government seized the land less than a decade later to mine for gold. A 1980 Supreme Court decision found that the U.S. violated the treaty, but the tribes refused the $1.3 billion in compensation they were offered and maintained their rights to the land. Indigenous groups also oppose drilling project
Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2025-06-24/south-dakota-eager-for-trumps-statue-garden-near-mount-rushmore-despite-local-opposition
= new reply since forum marked as read
Are You Kidding Me??
A shrine to America's WORST precedent??
Super 
Dunce
The Black Hills were stolen by our government:
"The Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, was "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians"[in the Fort Laramie Treaty of April 29, 1868. Those treaties were not upheld by the United States, and the Sioux Nation was eventually forcibly removed. The Supreme Court ruled in 1980 (US v Sioux Nation) that the Sioux Nation never received just compensation for their land, writing "a more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history." The Court concluded that Congress had failed to "makes a good faith effort to give the Indians the full value of the land." The Court ordered "just compensation to the Sioux Nation, and that obligation, including an award of interest, must now, at last, be paid." However, the Sioux Nation refused the monetary award, stating that their goal was return of the land."
They also blackmailed the Sioux:
"United States illegally seized the land and nullified the treaty with the Indian Appropriations Bill of 1876, without the tribe's consent. That bill "denied the Sioux all further appropriation and treaty-guaranteed annuities" until they gave up the Black Hills."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seizure_of_the_Black_Hills
The Black Hills are actually sacred to several tribes. They don't want the $billion+ settlement the Supreme Court gave them--they want their stolen land back! trump's statue will be the latest slap in the face, like the insult of Mt. Rushmore.
