To put it mildly, this represents a massive upgrade from Robert E. Lee, who led a military rebellion against the United States of America, all in the service of “states rights”….the right, that is, to own and exploit/abuse humans as slaves. The only bad news here is that this change from Lee to Johns took so long, but it’s great to see nonetheless! Thanks to Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA04), Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA10), and everyone else involved in making this happen!
P.S. See below for Gov. Northam’s press release.
Commission Selects Barbara Rose Johns to Represent Virginia in U.S. Capitol
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Virginia commission chooses civil rights leader Barbara Johns to replace Robert E. Lee statue in U.S. Capitol
Gregory S. Schneider, The Washington Post
Dec. 16, 2020
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RICHMOND, Va. - The statue of a Black teenage girl who dared to challenge segregation in Virginia schools could soon stand beside George Washington in the U.S. Capitol.
Barbara Rose Johns, who as a 16-year-old in 1951 led a protest of poor learning conditions for Black students in Farmville and helped dismantle school segregation nationwide, has been chosen by an advisory commission to replace Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee as one of two figures representing Virginia in the Capitol s Statuary Hall.
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Virginia to replace statue of Robert E. Lee with Barbara Johns effigy
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A commission in Virginia has chosen to replace the statue of Robert E. Lee, a leader of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, with one of civil rights activist to Barbara Johns in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Photo by Sarah Silbiger/UPI | License Photo
Dec. 16 (UPI) A commission in Virginia on Wednesday selected to replace the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee representing that state in the U.S. Capitol with an effigy of a black teenage girl who protested segregation.
December 17, 2020
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A state panel on Wednesday recommended that a statue of teenage civil rights heroine Barbara Rose Johns replace Virginia’s Robert E. Lee statue at the U.S. Capitol.
The Commission For Historical Statues In The United States Capitol voted 6-1 in favor of Johns, who was a 16-year-old student at Farmville’s Moton High School in 1951 when she led a student walkout to protest the students’ substandard segregated school facilities.
The Prince Edward County case was rolled into Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled government-segregated public schools unconstitutional.