The Rise Up Ride: Day 21, I've Ridden to the Mountaintop
Date: 13 May 2021
Start Location: Sylvan Lake, SD
End Location: Rapid City, SD
Distance: 73 km
Time: 4:00
Total elapsed: 5:36
Elevation: 950 m
Bob and I drove, bike in the back, through Custer State Park and herds of bison, fed the great-great grand burros of those abandoned by the miners, watched a badger terrorize the prairie dogs, visited the Native American monument to Crazy Horse and arrived, finally at Mt Rushmore.
Grand as it is, I'm still not convinced that blasting majestic granite into the likenesses of political leaders is an abasement not akin to carving your initials into a tree. Abhorrent! But, if it is there, let's tie it back to something deeper that it stands for; Washington who fought for it, Jefferson who thought for it, Lincoln who risked it all for the principles, and Roosevelt who embodied the American adventuristic optimism.
The Rise Up Rise emerged from the words of Dr. Martin Luther King the night before he was assassinated that speak across the decades to the challenge we face in 2021:
Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.
The Rise Up Ride has its philosophical, structural, and emotional underpinnings in a belief in those principles that informed the founding dream of America. Like King I feel that we can rise up to make this a better nation. Despite the obstacles of racism, ignorance, and tribalism that have characterized our social discourse recently, I feel that we are now on a redemptive pathway to making America a better nation. Rather than allowing any recent President to co-opt Mt. Rushmore, reselling it to the American public as a tribute to individual men (while envisioning his own face on the mountain), let's reclaim it as a monument to ideals and principles that can guide us to make American what it ought to be. I'll tolerate the defacing of nature for once if it stands for something more noble.
I rode my bicycle today and thought on these things.
