SelfhelpMagazine

by Tom Heuerman, Ph.D. with Diane Olson, Ph.D.

A year after the Battle of Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse's vanquished followers relocated to the reservation. He alone remained free. One day Crazy Horse met a White trader who mocked and made fun of him. "Where are your lands now, Crazy Horse? Your people are captured and put on reservations. Where are your lands you fought for?"

Crazy Horse sat on his pony and said nothing for awhile. He just stared at the White trader. Slowly, he raised his arm and pointed out over his horse's head to the east, and said proudly, "My lands are where my dead lie buried." That same day, Crazy Horse went to Fort Robinson in Nebraska under a flag of truce. While there he was stabbed in the back by a White soldier and died the next day, September 6, 1877.

One-hundred and twenty years later, in 1997, I stood on the patio of the Visitor Center at the Crazy Horse Memorial near Custer, South Dakota, and looked at the majestic 600 foot Thunderhead Mountain a mile away. The face of Crazy Horse emerged from the granite, and his 263 foot arm pointed east over the head of his horse toward the Black Hills. As I photographed the lighted mountain, I was in awe of what I had learned in the past hour about this grand dream. I felt sorrow for Native Americans and inspired by the magnitude of this undertaking.

In 1939, Sioux Indian Chief Henry Standing Bear wrote to Boston-born sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and asked him to carve Crazy Horse in the mountains of the Black Hills. Sioux Chiefs wanted to show the White man that the Indians had their great heroes too. In 1947, at age 38, after serving in World War II, and turning down a government commission to create war memorials in Europe, the self-taught "storyteller in stone" arrived at the Black Hills to carve a 100 foot likeness of Crazy Horse.

During the early months, Korczak sat and looked at the mountain for five days and five nights. We can only imagine what he thought. At the end of the five days he decided to carve the entire mountain rather than just the top 100 feet as planned. The vision had grown. After all, he said, "I had no where to go."

Crazy Horse would be a symbol; a tribute to all North American Indians. The vision now included a memorial in the round-the largest sculptor ever undertaken, a Native American medical center, the University of North America for Native Americans, and a Native American cultural center. Korczak's purpose was to give the Native Americans "a little bit of pride and to try to right a little bit of the wrong. . . they did to these people."

Korczak spent the next 35 years carving his dream. The first winter he lived in a tent as he built a studio-home and a 741-step staircase to the top of the mountain. In 1950, after three years of solitude, he married Ruth Ross and they had ten children. Korczak suffered many injuries over the years. Knowing he would not live long enough to finish the memorial, he and Ruth spent three years detailing three books of plans for the memorial. When he died in 1982, at age 74, he had blasted 7.4 million tons of granite from the mountain. The storyteller in stone was laid to rest in a tomb in the mountain and was eulogized as a man of "legends, dreams, visions, and greatness."

Ruth Ziolkowski and seven of her ten children, each of whom left the memorial to do other things and returned because it was "where they belonged," keep the dream alive and progress continues. Ruth says it is "not important when it's finished; half of the fun is watching it grow." When finished the memorial will be 563 feet high and 641 feet long. It will be taller than the Washington monument and larger than the biggest pyramid. The four heads at nearby Mount Rushmore will fit inside of Crazy Horse's 22 story head. On June 3, 1998, on the fiftieth anniversary of the first dynamite blast, Crazy Horse's head will be completed and dedicated.

Public donations fund this humanitarian project. Korczak, who left a life of assured fame and fortune, never took a salary. When he began the project, he had $174. Twice turning down $10 million government grants, Korczak asked, "Why should a memorial to the American Indian be financed by the very government that broke its treaties with the Indians and turned its back on all its promises?"

There are many lessons for individuals and organizations in the story of Korczak and Ruth Ziolkowski and their children. They include: The power of a personal purpose, the courage, power, and commitment provided by a great vision, the nobility of effort to honor the vision, the choice of a life of service over selfishness, a vision that transcends the leader, the importance of spirit and integrity in our lives, the meaning created when we are part of something larger than ourselves, and the choice that individuals and organizations have to pursue their dreams and live courageous lives. Most organizations are mediocre. Most people and organizations have visions that are too small for their capabilities. Most jobs are too small for the people in them.

Don't forget your dreams.

About the Author:

See Dr. Heuerman's author page in Selfhelp Magazine here.