PUBLIC HISTORY
Madison Grant and California State Parks
American eugenicist Madison Grant (1965-1937) received two memorials from the State of California in 1931 and 1948 (posthumously), for his efforts presumably, in the conservation of the California Redwoods as a 1918 co-founder of the Save the Redwoods League. Madison Grant was a New York socialite and author of The Passing of the Great Race (1916), a book that inspired the racist immigration acts of 1917, 1921, and 1924. Grant's book prompted Adolf Hitler to write Mein Kampf, and Hitler wrote Grant a fan-boy letter in which he called Grant's book “my Bible.”
As a race and performance scholar, I am interested in the ways in which space continues to "perform" genealogies and histories of racism. Resultantly, my likeminded colleagues, historians David McIntosh (SENMC) and Paul Spickard (UCSB) and I began working on a campaign in 2019, and in 2020, we petitioned California State Parks to reconsider the memorials that aggrandize Grant's racist legacy. Specifically, we asked for the removal of Grant's name from the Madison Grant Forest and Elk Refuge in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in Humboldt County.
Two Years in the Making . . .
After many hours of emails and meetings with state legislative staff, California State Parks top management, and the leaders of Save the Redwoods League, in April 2021 California State Parks decided to rescind Grant's name and rename the forest and refuge in a way approved by the local Yurok people. On June 15, 2021, the state removed the boulder bearing the plaque commemorating Grant. I attended the ceremony with my colleagues, key Cal Parks personnel, Yurok representatives, and members of Save the Redwoods. Efforts are ongoing to reimagine the memorial at Founders Grove in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which commemorates the founders of the Save the Redwoods League.
Standing next to the Madison Grant Memorial rock before it was taken away (front left to right): Dr. Rena Heinrich, Dr. David McIntosh, Sam Hodder, Vicki Ozaki, Dr. Paul Spickard, Victor Bjelajac, Jim Wheeler, Dr. Leslie Hartzell, and Sherri Provolt.