Barbara Johns, who at 16 led student protests against segregated schools in Virginia, is likely to have her statue erected in the U.S. Capitol, replacing Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, a fellow Virginian, in National Statuary Hall.
Amid a national reckoning over the country s history and self-conception, Confederate monuments and monikers, like Lee s statue, have been criticized and removed for their fraught racial legacy.
“As a teenager (in 1951), Barbara Johns bravely led a protest that defied segregation and challenged the barriers that she and her African American peers faced, ultimately dismantling them,” Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement after the Commission on Historical Statues in the United States Capitol voted Wednesday to recommend her statue.
Statue of Barbara Johns, Virginia civil rights icon, expected to replace Robert E. Lee in US Capitol Matthew Brown, USA TODAY
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Barbara Johns, who at 16 led student protests against segregated schools in Virginia, is likely to have her statue erected in the U.S. Capitol, replacing Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, a fellow Virginian, in National Statuary Hall. Amid a national reckoning over the country s history and self-conception, Confederate monuments and monikers, like Lee s statue, have been criticized and removed for their fraught racial legacy.
“As a teenager (in 1951), Barbara Johns bravely led a protest that defied segregation and challenged the barriers that she and her African American peers faced, ultimately dismantling them,” Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement after the Commission on Historical Statues in the United States Capitol voted Wednesday to recommend her statue.