Harriet F. Senie

The people celebrated in long-cherished monuments, like Mount Rushmore, can turn out to have very dark parts of their history. Some people feel we should ignore those historical facts and only talk about the pleasant things. Others believe that to make a more inclusive United States, we need to recognize and teach about the whole person memorialized in those monuments. Sometimes we may have to move those monuments or even take them down. On this episode of Inquiry, we talk with HARRIET F. SENIE. She is professor emerita of art history at the City College of New York and at CUNY Graduate Center. She is also the co-founder of the international organization Public Art Dialogue. We will be talking about her important history MONUMENTAL CONTROVERSIES: MOUNT RUSHMORE, FOUR PRESIDENTS, AND THE QUEST FOR NATIONAL UNITY.