The story of Mount Rushmore

Brut America

Its sculptor had ties to the Ku Klux Klan, and the land it was built on belonged to Native Americans.   This is the controversial history of Mount Rushmore, where President Trump will attend 4th of July festivities.

Transcript

00:00The blasting of Washington's chin, and the first step in the world's largest monument is finished.

00:06♪♪

00:22Dedicated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, here will be four great presidents, or should I have said five?

00:28Ten thousand years from now, I think we can meditate and wonder whether our descendants,

00:34because I think they'll still be here, what they will think about us.

00:40♪♪

00:54When do you think this work will be completed, Mr. Baldwin?

00:57We plan to finish it so that the figures will be done by 1935, sufficiently to allow the president to unveil it.

01:27♪♪

01:32He actually believed that the Klan platform was a worthy platform.

01:38♪♪

01:42I'm allowing an extra three inches on all the features of the various presidents in order to provide stone for the wear and tear of the elements,

01:53which cuts the figure down, or cuts the granite down, an inch in a hundred thousand years.

01:59♪♪

02:14♪♪

02:29♪♪

02:44♪♪

03:07The great stone faces of four presidents stand in lonely silence as the last workmen leave the late goods on Borglum's mighty project.

03:15Machinery is dismantled, for with the death of the sculptor last spring, all but cleanup work was abandoned.

03:21♪♪

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