‘Not on my watch.’ Governor pledges to protect Mount Rushmore if protesters arrive

As protesters push for some symbols of America’s past to be removed or destroyed, could Mount Rushmore be next?

“Not on my watch,” South Dakota’s governor said.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem vowed to protect the historic monument in a tweet on Tuesday, in response to Ben Shapiro, a conservative political commentator.

Shapiro had earlier tweeted: “So, when is our woke historical revisionist priesthood going to insist on blowing up Mount Rushmore?”

He later said it’s only a matter of time before “far-left and anarchist protesters” take aim at Rushmore, according to Fox News.

While the fight against police brutality and racial injustice continues in the wake of George Floyd’s death while in police custody, protesters have taken aim at statues and monuments that are connected to slavery and white supremacy — especially those from the Confederacy.

Monuments and statues across the country have been torn down as activists contend they are toxic memorials of racist and controversial figures who shouldn’t have a place of honor in communities.

Mount Rushmore features the carved busts of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln on the side of a Keystone, South Dakota, mountain.

Nearly 3 million people visit the popular monument every year, according to the National Park Service. President Donald Trump even plans to attend a July 4th fireworks celebration at Mount Rushmore, McClatchy News reported.

Protesters have called for monuments and statues that honor Washington and Jefferson, both slave owners, to be knocked down. Protesters in Oregon brought down a statue of Jefferson that was outside a local high school, McClatchy News reported.

In California, two elementary schools named after the founding fathers are to be renamed because Washington and Jefferson owned slaves.

“Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and a Framer of the Constitution, was nonetheless an unrepentant slaveholder whose wealth was built on the labor of the enslaved,” the school district’s resolution said. “Washington, to whose selfless service to a new nation this country is forever indebted, nonetheless profited from the enslaved labor of hundreds of human beings, and signed the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act.”

It is not clear if Noem has been pressured to have Mount Rushmore torn down or how the massive monument could be destroyed, Fox 8 reported.

This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 7:43 PM with the headline "‘Not on my watch.’ Governor pledges to protect Mount Rushmore if protesters arrive."