Brave Heart considers Harney's name to be offensive because Harney led deadly campaigns against Native Americans, and because the peak named for him is within the Black Hills, an area of spiritual significance to some tribes.

Modern Native American animosity toward Harney is focused mostly on the Battle of Ash Hollow in 1855 in present-day Nebraska, where he led troops who attacked and killed an estimated 86 Sioux people, including women and children. The attack was launched in retaliation for the so-called Grattan Fight of the previous year, when Sioux warriors killed 29 soldiers.

Black Elk is known worldwide as the subject of the book "Black Elk Speaks," author John Neihardt's 1932 account of stories and spiritual visions related to him by Black Elk. More than 900,000 copies of the book have been sold since its first printing, according to the University of Nebraska Press.

Brave Heart was not immediately available Thursday afternoon by phone, but he spoke to the Journal earlier in the week and said he and many other Native Americans hoped Daugaard would honor the federal board’s decision.

“We don’t want to be defined by a government that named a sacred Black Hills mountain after someone who committed an atrocity,” Brave Heart said. “This could really lift some negative energy off our backs.”