Sierra Club removing monuments to founder John Muir over white supremacist ties
An environmentalist group announced they will remove monuments dedicated to its founder and renowned conservationist, John Muir, because of his ties to white supremacists.
The Sierra Club, founded by Muir in 1892, posted a statement on its website explaining that some of its historical members were vocal advocates of white supremacy, The Hill reported.
“As defenders of Black life pull down Confederate monuments across the country, we must also take this moment to reexamine our past and our substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy,” the statement said. “It’s time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Club’s early history.”
Muir has been called “The Father of our National Parks,” and his writings contributed to the creation of a number of national parks, including Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon, according to the Sierra Club. He is also the namesake of the Muir Woods National Monument in California’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the Sierra Club says.
Despite Muir’s contributions to the nation’s conservationist movement, he had friendships with known white supremacists, like renowned paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn, “who worked for both the conservation of nature and the conservation of the white race,” according to the Sierra Club.
Osborn helped found the American Eugenics Society after Muir’s death, the Sierra Club said.
Muir himself made “derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life,” according to the Sierra Club.
The Sierra Club, which has 3.8 million members, also expressed concern about other early members and leaders who advocated for “forced-sterilization laws and programs” and created the Human Betterment Foundation, whose research was later used to create Nazi Germany’s eugenics legislation, the Sierra Club said.
David Starr Jordan, a “‘kingpin’ of the eugenics movement” served on the Sierra Club’s board of directors during Muir’s tenure as president, according to the Sierra Club.
“The whiteness and privilege of our early membership fed into a very dangerous idea — one that’s still circulating today,” the group said. “Such willful ignorance is what allows some people to shut their eyes to the reality that the wild places we love are also the ancestral homeland of Native peoples, forced off their lands in the decades or centuries before they became national parks.”
The Sierra Club’s decision comes as activists across the nation demand the removal of statues, monuments and school names that have ties to slavery, white supremacy and colonialism, from Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to Christopher Columbus.
A cultural shift to remove racist stereotypes from America’s past is also being felt in the business and sports worlds, with popular brands like Aunt Jemima’s breakfast products being retired from store shelves and the NFL’s team in Washington, D.C. changing its name from Redskins.
Not only will the Sierra Club remove its monuments, they will restructure their leadership to include more Black, Indigenous and other leaders of color, the group said. The club will also reallocate $5 million from its budget to make more investments in its staff of color and racial justice initiatives, pending board approval, according to the group’s website.
The group will spend the next year deciding whether to rename or remove other moments, the Sierra Club said.
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 1:53 PM with the headline "Sierra Club removing monuments to founder John Muir over white supremacist ties."