Sierra Club apologizes for racist views of ‘father of national parks’ John Muir

Muir, who helped spawn the environmental movement, made derogatory comments about Black and Indigenous people

The Sierra Club has apologized for racist remarks its founder, naturalist John Muir, made more than a century ago as the influential environmental group grapples with a harmful history that perpetuated white supremacy.

Michael Brune, the group's executive director, said Wednesday it was time to take down some of our own monuments" as statues of Confederate officers and colonists are toppled across the US amid a reckoning with the nation's racist history following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.