Mount Rushmore’s Uneasy Connections to the KKK and Confederate Statues

Jason Cochran
9 min readJul 2, 2020

The sculptor perfected his concepts by working for white supremacists in the Lost Cause monument movement

You can add Mount Rushmore to the list of memorials that wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for the relentless United Daughters of the Confederacy — the group that spearheaded the erection of thousands of Confederate monuments.

Jason Cochran

Author of “Here Lies America,” Editor-in-Chief of Frommers.com, WABC co-host, two-time Lowell Thomas Award winner for Guide Book of the Year.