The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction on privately held land in the Black Hills, in Custer County, South Dakota, United States.

The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain, on land considered sacred by some Oglala Lakota, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 17 miles (27 km) from Mount Rushmore.

He surrendered to U.S. troops under General George Crook in May 1877 and was fatally wounded by a military guard, allegedly[5][6] while resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska.

[7] Henry Standing Bear (Mato Naji), an Oglala Lakota chief, and well-known statesman and elder in the Native American community, recruited and commissioned Polish-American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski to build the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

In October 1931, Luther Standing Bear, Henry's older brother, wrote to sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who was carving the heads of four American presidents at Mount Rushmore.

[9] In summer of 1935, Standing Bear, frustrated over the stalled Crazy Horse project, wrote to James H. Cook, a long time friend of Chief Red Cloud's, "I am struggling hopelessly with this because I am without funds, no employment and no assistance from any Indian or White.

"[11] Standing Bear also wrote a letter to Undersecretary Oscar Chapman of the Department of the Interior, offering all his own fertile 900 acres (365 ha) in exchange for the barren mountain for the purpose of paying honor to Crazy Horse.

[12] In the spring of 1940, Ziolkowski spent three weeks with Standing Bear at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, discussing land ownership issues and learning about Crazy Horse and the Lakota way of life.

The crane, with an estimated cost of $5.2 million, was made possible by several anonymous donations and was procured in 2023, with all parts weighing 25,000 pounds combined, and was shipped to the mountain on 17 truck beds.

The Memorial Foundation finances the project by charging fees for its visitor centers, earning revenue from its gift shops, and receiving private contributions.

[19] Paul and Donna "Muffy" Christen of Huron, South Dakota announced in July 2010 they were donating US$5 million in two installments to an endowment to support the operation of the satellite campus.

[33] Elaine Quiver, a descendant of one of Crazy Horse's aunts,[34] said in 2003 that the elder Standing Bear should not have independently petitioned Ziolkowski to create the memorial, because Lakota culture dictates consensus from family members for such a decision, which was not obtained before the first rock was dynamited in 1948.

[35]Seth Big Crow, whose great-grandmother was an aunt of Crazy Horse's, said he wondered about the millions of dollars which the Ziolkowski family had collected from the visitor center and shops associated with the memorial, and "the amount of money being generated by his ancestor's name".

In his 1972 autobiography, John Fire Lame Deer, a Lakota medicine man, said: "The whole idea of making a beautiful wild mountain into a statue of him is a pollution of the landscape.

"[36] In a 2001 interview, Lakota activist Russell Means said: "Imagine going to the holy land in Israel, whether you're a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, and start carving up the mountain of Zion.

[38] Jim Bradford, an Oglala Sioux rancher and former member of the South Dakota Senate also criticized the project saying "one non-Indian family has become millionaires off our people".