Dale Matson
“Sierra Club seeks Yosemite Lodge name change after learning
it honors white supremacist” The article written by Andrea Castillo can be
found here. http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article61210702.html
I found it rather ironic that while the National Park
Service is fighting with the Delaware North Company over Yosemite Park name
changes, it now has to consider the request of the Sierra Club executive
members to remove Joseph LeConte’s name from the lodge in Yosemite built to
commemorate his life and work. LeConte along with John Muir was one of the
founding members of the Sierra Club.
It is also an irony but not a surprise, that the politically
correct preservationist Sierra Club would take a turn toward historical revisionism.
The club was once proud to associate itself with the name LeConte and they are
the publishers of his book “A Journal Of Ramblings Through The High Sierra Of
California By The University Excursion Party”. The Sierra Club was undoubtedly
the primary advocate to have LeConte’s name associated with many of the Sierra
Nevada features like the LeConte Divide. Will they now contact the Board on
Geographic Names (BGN) and request that his name be removed from the next
generation of topographic maps?
It is often said that hindsight is 20-20 but history is what
it is, both noble and shameful. What we do today will be judged by folks who
come after us. Being ‘enlightened’ in the present does not allow us to deny the
reality of the past and the story of Joseph LeConte should remain, with the
proviso that his racism be acknowledged and this can be done without
celebrating it at the same time. As Scripture states, “Let he who is without
sin cast the first stone.” (John 8:7)
The negative things in my history should
not cancel the good things I have done. How many of the executive members of
the Sierra Club (a club to which I belong) are themselves without sin? How will
their actions be judged 50 years from now?
Frankly many individuals in LeConte’s day were racists. That
is not to say that it was right but do we purge the recorded history of those
individuals as payback for their objectionable actions and attitudes? Theodore
Solomons another founding member of the Sierra Club was concerned that his name
would not appear on any landmarks because of his opposition to club leadership
in his day.
Both John Muir and Clarence King were racists in their
attitudes and comments about Native Americans. King wrote in “Mountaineering In
The Sierra Nevada”, “I usually confess
my opinion that the Quakers will have to work a great reformation in the Indian
before he is really fit to be exterminated.” Should his great discoveries as a
geologist for the State of California be discounted for this? He was the first
head of the USGS. Should his name be removed from Mt. Clarence King in Kings
Canyon and King Peak in Antarctica?
John Muir was involved in commercial logging in Yosemite. He
herded domestic sheep that spread diseases to the native Sierra Nevada Bighorn
Sheep and almost caused their extinction. Should his name also be removed?
Should the remains of Walter Starr Jr. be removed from his rock tomb created by
Norman Clyde and Jules Eichorn on Michael Minaret? What about the spirit of the
Wilderness Act to “Leave No Trace? What
will we learn about other icons? Ansel Adams another Sierra Club member
condemned his grandfather and father for operating a lumber business yet he
smoked cigarettes. How would we judge him by today’s standards?
Francis P. Farquhar “History Of The Sierra Nevada” dedicated
a chapter to the Sierra Club. He noted that some words in the Sierra Club’s
original charter were removed. To “render accessible” What has happened since
then? Would LeConte, Muir and Solomons even apply for membership today?
This is the season of Lent and a fitting time for the
leadership of the Sierra Club to do some corporate soul searching. As a member,
I am frankly tired of all the requests for more donations, threats of litigation
and obstructionist politics. It is time again for the Sierra Club to be as pro
people as it is pro environment.
The Sierra Club has renamed The LeConte Memorial in Yosemite to the "Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center".
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