An 11-foot bronze statue of Barbara Rose Johns was unveiled in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, following Virginia’s decision to replace a Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee and honoring the teenager who led a 1951 student walkout at R.R. Moton High School.The sculpture by Maryland artist Steven Weitzman shows 16-year-old Johns raising a book over a lectern and bears her words, “Are we going to just accept these conditions, or are we going to do something about it?”, and family members and leaders including Tim Kaine, Mike Johnson and Glenn Youngkin attended the unveiling.Johns’s 1951 protest drew
NAACP lawyers
Spottswood Robinson and
Oliver Hill into Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, which became part of
Brown v. Board of Education; Prince Edward County’s later "Massive Resistance" and Virginia’s multi-step selection process complete the backstory.