A new statue at the U.S. Capitol honors a teenage girl whose defiance helped to end segregation and spark the Civil Rights Movement. The display recognizes a woman who played a key part in the fight for equal rights, and the statue replaces a controversial Confederate statue that long represented Virginia at the Capitol.
Statue honors Barbara Rose Johns, whose protests helped lead to the end of segregation
A statue was put on display at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, depicting a teenage Barbara Rose Johns, as NPR reported. The statue honors Johns, who, as a Black teenager, led a 1951 walkout at the segregated Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. After the 16-year-old’s protests, the NAACP entered the fight against segregation in Farmville, and the case and four others were included in a challenge to school segregation that led to the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that struck down the “separate but equal” policy.
After her protests, Johns left Virginia for her safety, and she later attended Spelman College and graduated from Drexel University. Johns, who died in 1991, was known in her adult life as a librarian, the wife of Rev. William Powell, and the mother of their five children. Johns’ daughter, Terry Harrison, described her mother at the ceremony, saying, “She was brave, bold, determined, strong, wise, unselfish, warm and loving.” Harrison said the Johns’ family is “truly grateful that this magnificent monument to her story, the sacrifices that her family and her community made, may continue to inspire and teach others that no matter what, you too can reach for the moon.” The ceremony to unveil Johns’ statue included members of Congress, Virginia officials and over 200 members of Johns’ family, leading Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana to call the event one of the most attended ceremonies he has witnessed during his time as Speaker of the House.
Replacing Confederate statue that once represented Virginia
The new statue is also significant for what it replaces, taking the place of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Each of the 50 states is allocated two statues to represent it in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection. Until 2020, Virginia was represented by Lee and President George Washington. Lee’s statue was removed in 2020 as a number of Confederate monuments were taken down in the wake of protests over George Floyd’s murder. After the removal of the Lee statue at the request of then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, a Virginia committee approved a plan to replace the Confederate statue with one of Johns.
Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has objected to the removal of Confederate monuments and even taken measures to restore Confederate statues and names to federal facilities such as national parks and military bases. In this context, the replacement of Lee’s statue with the statue of Johns stands out. Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York noted that “the Commonwealth of Virginia will now be properly represented by an actual patriot who embodied the principle of liberty and justice for all and not a traitor who took up arms against the United States to preserve the brutal institution of chattel slavery.”
The new statue of Johns honors a little-known but pivotal figure in the early days of what became the Civil Rights Movement. The statue speaks to the power of one teenager to make a difference, and it represents a new focus on honoring those who sought to overturn racism and inequality instead of those who fought to maintain racial oppression.