The U.S. Capitol unveiled a statue of civil rights figure Barbara Rose Johns as a replacement for the removed Robert E. Lee statue. The former Lee statue represented Virginia for 111 years before being removed in 2020.
“We are here to honor one of America’s true trailblazers, a woman who embodied the essence of the American spirit in her fight for liberty and justice and equal treatment under the law, the indomitable Barbara Rose Johns,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said, as per the Associated Press.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) honored the statue on social media, writing, “You can’t tell the story of Virginia, or the story of how our nation overcame segregation, without telling the story of Barbara Rose Johns.”
Johns’ efforts against segregation contributed to the Brown v. Board of Education case.
According to the Architect of the Capitol, the statue “depicts Johns during a pivotal moment in her life: she is 16 years old speaking to her classmates at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia, convincing them to join her and other student organizers to strike for better school facilities and supplies.” It explains that her “focused expression and clenched left fist show her passion and intensity as she exhorts her classmates. In her right hand, Johns brandishes a tattered textbook, titled The History of Virginia, indicative of the subpar, second-hand materials the school district provided for Moton students.”
“Johns steps slightly forward on her right foot, a lectern to her left,” it adds. “The lectern, and the wood floor beneath, suggest the auditorium where Johns and the other organizers gathered Moton students on April 23, 1951.”
