More than seven decades after she stood up inside a segregated Virginia high school, civil rights pioneer Barbara Rose Johns now stands in the U.S. Capitol—immortalized in bronze and representing the Commonwealth of Virginia.
On Tuesday, December 16, a statue honoring Johns officially replaced one of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, according to NPR.
Johns was just 16 years old in 1951 when she organized a student strike at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. The school, which served Black students, was severely overcrowded and underfunded, with some classes held in tar-paper shacks lacking heat, plumbing, or basic resources.
Frustrated by the conditions, Johns rallied roughly 450 students to walk out, demanding better facilities and equal treatment.
What began as a local protest quickly became something much bigger. The NAACP took up the students’ cause, filing a lawsuit known as Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. That case ultimately became one of five consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled segregated public schools unconstitutional.
Johns’ statue now resides in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. Created by Maryland-based sculptor Steven Weitzman, the 11-foot bronze depicts a teenage Johns mid-speech, holding a book above her head. The pedestal bears her words: “Are we going to just accept these conditions, or are we going to do something about it?”
For more than a century, Virginia was represented in the Capitol by statues of George Washington and Robert E. Lee. Lee’s statue was removed in 2020, and after a multi-year approval process, Johns was selected to take its place.
Born in New York City in 1935, Johns moved to Prince Edward County as a child and was the niece of civil rights leader Rev. Vernon Johns. After the strike, concerns for her safety led her to finish school outside of Virginia.
She later attended Spelman College, graduated from Drexel University, and worked as a librarian in the Philadelphia Public Schools. She and her husband, Rev. William Powell, raised five children before her death in 1991 at age 56.