Tribal leaders plan to protest President Trump’s visit to Mount Rushmore on Friday.
Members of the Sioux tribe have been warning the state of South Dakota and the Trump administration that fireworks should not be used above Mount Rushmore because it could cause forest fires or other pollution. Tribal leaders also say the region where Mount Rushmore is located, the Black Hills, is rightfully theirs and is sacred land.
“It’s like if he tried to go and have a fireworks display celebrating independence at the Vatican,” said James Bear Runner, the president of the Oglala Sioux tribe.
The National Park Service has not allowed fireworks above Mount Rushmore for more than a decade due to concerns about wildfires and the contamination of drinking water supplies, according to the Washington Post. But after an Interior Department assessment determined there would be “no significant impact” from a fireworks event, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, announced such a display would return this year.
Trump is set to attend the ticketed event there on Friday evening to celebrate Independence Day, which falls on a Saturday. According to the Associated Press, several groups led by Native American activists are planning protests for Trump’s visit.
The fireworks display, which is expected to host thousands of people, will take place days after a fire started six miles south of the monument and burnt 60 acres before it was extinguished by a crew of 117 firefighters.
Ricky Gray Grass, a member of the Oglala Sioux’s executive council, said state and federal officials have ignored their concerns. “They kind of just came in and listened. At the end, they kind of just blew us off … saying, ‘We’re still going to have this fireworks display,’” he said, according to the Washington Post.
Last week, Bear Runner said Mount Rushmore should be removed because he believes it is on the tribe’s land and that the four presidents carved onto the mountain were racists. Gray Grass agreed and said that the carving was an insult to the tribe.
“The whole Black Hills is sacred. For them to come and carve the presidents, slave owners who have no meaning to us, it was an insult,” Gray Grass said.
Three Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee have asked the Government Accountability Office to examine the “costs and impacts” of Trump’s decision to “expand” Fourth of July events as well as whether proper considerations have been given to the coronavirus pandemic.
