Two Monuments: A Lesson in Two Americas

A Reflection on America and the Monuments it Reveres

Photo by Uniq Trek on Unsplash

The following is from an unpublished travel and political memoir from 2020, written at the height of the pandemic. I am publishing it here now, piece by piece, because we cannot move forward until we look back.

In the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota, you’ll find a monument to each America.

One of those Americas is the stuff of legend. Flags wave, chests fill with pride, and all voices sing in perfect harmony. The heroes carved upon it have an aura of myth and glory, gods of America. One of them charged up a hill in Puerto Rico, spreading freedom with each stride of his horse, and had cuddly children’s toys named after him after he spared the life of a bear. Others were known for honesty, wisdom, and dignity, for standing up to bullies across the sea, or for fighting to keep a nation together. This is an America that is always striving forward, always doing right, always standing for freedom and dignity, and when you see its flag wave you stand tall and proud with your hand over your heart. It is an idea you march for, die for, fight for, spread over the surface of the earth, and carve into stone.

But when you look closer, this America is a lot smaller than you expect it to be. Two of these faces are the faces of people who thought that the people of a just and free nation can own other people, and force them into labor based on the color of their skin. Another of them supported a system uprooting Native Americans from their homes to force them to assimilate. This America looks clean and mighty and dignified, but it is built upon stolen land, on the sweat and toil and blood of those it viewed as less worthy.

Less than twenty miles away, stands a monument to a different America. This one was designed by a Polish immigrant, in honor of a Lakota Warrior who fought to protect his way of life, and who never gave up on his struggle. It is America that has spent years and years struggling to exist, but the image of what it can become is just barely taking shape. It is an America that has existed only on paper, and in the minds of philosophers and visionaries, the blueprint of land that can be.

There is a lot of talk these days about monuments. Confederate generals and heroes, often built as stone guardians of the Jim Crow south, along with the flags their soldiers waved, try to give some pride and glory to the defeated side of our bloodiest war. In defending these monuments, many claim that we are trying to erase a history.

The words monument and memorial both come from the words for memory, and when we stand before them, they may help us remember the past. But ultimately, monuments are not really there to teach history; they are there to teach values. It is the values and truths we are trying to remember and preserve, more than the history. A statue of Adolph Hitler may help us remember World War II, but we’re not going to build such a statue because that doesn’t stand for our values. When we build monuments to that war, they typically reflect the values of courage, sacrifice, and struggle against despotism. Maya Lin’s tribute to the Vietnam War — almost 60,000 names carved into a scar on the earth, where visitors see their faces reflected over those names of the dead — reveals values, truths, and feelings about war — especially that war — reflecting the zeitgeist of that time. The Washington Monument doesn’t have our first president’s face carved on it, or talk about the slaves he owned, or the battles he fought, or tell us anything about his history; instead it gives off a sense of permanence, strength, reverence, and towering immensity. It points at the sky, towards high ideals and the upward climb towards truth, with the Latin words for “praise be to God” stamped on the top to greet the rising sun.

When we build a monument, or fight to preserve one, we are not asking, “what history does this teach?” We are asking ourselves, as a nation, “what values do we cherish?”

Many in the south argue that the Confederate flag represents some struggle against an oppressive north. They claim the flag represents the values of southern pride and dignity, and that the American Civil War was about state’s rights and self-determination.

Was that a war about state’s rights? There is an easy way to answer that question. When the states seceded, several of them published declarations stating the purpose for their secession. What do they say?

Mississippi’s declaration states, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world.”

The declaration of South Carolina gives a long declaration about states’ rights and the values of the founding fathers, but when it gets to defining what states’ rights were violated and what values trampled, it cites the Fugitive Slave Act.

Texas mentions the right to “ensure domestic tranquility,” then reveals how the abolition of slavery would undermine this.

Virginia, in reference to the United States government’s power over the states, stated that “the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.”

It is unambiguous in the words of these seceding states that the potential abolition of slavery, and the fears — economic and personal — over that abolition, was the spirit, value, and purpose of that secession, and by extension the flag and those monuments to generals who fought for those “rights.” When you fight for them, what are you protecting? Is it free speech? People still have the right to own and fly flags and build statues on their own property for their own values and purpose; the memorials built by and maintained by governments, not people, don’t reflect free speech — they carry with them the values endorsed by those governments.

Of course, both monuments I spoke of from the beginning — Mount Rushmore and the statue of Crazy Horse — are where they don’t belong. Both were built against the wishes of the indigenous people who have the right to the land. Both speak to a colonizing vision that represent our greatest ideals, a glory unwillingly imposed and torn into a sacred landscape, which only furthers the realization that we need to think really hard about the statues we build and the monuments we leave.

The monuments we build and protect should not just be monuments to history; carved into the shape and vision of the stone, we should see the values and purpose of the country we hope to become. Nobody should see the values of those who enslaved and oppressed their ancestors looming over them in their neighborhood park.

When we build a monument and celebrate it, we are not carving the past into stone; we are carving a wish for the future.

If you’re rich, buy me a coffee ☕️

Check out Descriptables!