She Protested School Segregation as a Teenager. Now She’s Being Honored With a Statue at the U.S. Capitol

Lawmakers gathered in the Capitol for the unveiling of a bronze statue honoring teenage civil rights activist Barbara Rose Johns

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

December 22, 2025

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On April 23, 1951, a Black teenager in Virginia rallied her classmates to protest the poor conditions of their segregated school. The walkout, organized by 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns, ultimately helped lead to the end of school segregation in America.

Now, more than seven decades later, Johns’ legacy is being cemented with a new statue in the U.S. Capitol. On December 16, lawmakers gathered for the ceremonial unveiling of the 11-foot bronze work, created by Maryland artist Steven Weitzman.

The statue depicts a teenaged Johns standing beside a lectern, holding a book high above her head. Her mouth is open, as if she’s in the middle of speaking. The pedestal bears the engraving: “Are we going to just accept these conditions, or are we going to do something about it?” Along with that quote is one from the Book of Isaiah: “And a little child shall lead them.”

The statue was revealed inside Emancipation Hall, an area within the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center with dozens of statues on display. In a few days, it will be moved to the Capitol Crypt, joining other statues from the first 13 states.

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Under the National Statuary Hall Collection, each state gets to select two individuals to honor with statues at the Capitol. Until recently, one of Virginia’s picks was Confederate General Robert E. Lee. That statue was removed in December 2020 at the request of then-Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.

After considering dozens of influential Virginians, the state’s leaders ultimately agreed that a statue of Johns should take its place. “I think Virginia is trying to correct some of its inequities,” Joan Johns Cobbs, Johns’ younger sister, told VPM’s Adrienne Hoar McGibbon in March 2024. “The fact that they chose her was one way they are trying to rectify what happened in the past.”

Virginia’s other Capitol statue depicts George Washington, a founding father and the nation’s first president. Pairing Johns with Washington is a “really, really powerful juxtaposition,” says Cainan Townsend, who runs the Moton Museum in Johns’ former high school, to the Washington Post’s Gregory S. Schneider and Laura Meckler.

Born in New York in March 1935, Johns moved to Virginia during World War II. After enrolling at Robert Russa Moton High School in the town of Farmville, she became increasingly troubled by the poor conditions at her all-Black institution. Students wore their coats to stay warm during their classes, which were held inside free-standing tar-paper shacks without proper plumbing. The school had no gymnasium and no cafeteria, and it was overcrowded.

Meanwhile, students at Prince Edward County’s all-white school had comfortable buses, new books and warm, clean classrooms, per the Washington Post. Even their lowest-paid teacher earned more than the highest-paid teacher at Robert Russa Moton High School.

Eventually, Johns decided enough was enough. In the spring of 1951, she convinced all 450 students at the school to walk out in protest. They stayed home for roughly two weeks.

Inspired by the protest, lawyers with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed suit against the county in federal court. That lawsuit—Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia—was eventually combined with other, similar cases, including Brown v. Board of Education, as the U.S. Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of segregation in schools. Their landmark 1954 decision ended the “separate but equal” doctrine that had applied since the mid-1890s.

But integration was slow across the nation. Prince Edward County public schools were not officially integrated until 1964, following a five-year closure to protest the mandate.

Johns, meanwhile, was sent to live with relatives and finish out high school in Alabama over concerns for her safety. After graduation, she attended Spelman College and Drexel University, and became a librarian for Philadelphia Public Schools. She also got married and raised five children. Johns died in 1991 at the age of 56.

“We knew her as Barbara Powell: minister's wife, mother, librarian,” Terry Harrison, one of Johns’ daughters, said at the unveiling ceremony, as reported by NPR’s Rachel Treisman. “But the core of who she was as a 16-year-old remained. She was brave, bold, determined, strong, wise, unselfish, warm and loving.”

Harrison added: “We're 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."

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.