Her 1951 walkout helped end school segregation. Now her statue is in the U.S. Capitol

"Barbara Rose Johns was 16 when she mobilized hundreds of students to walk out of Farmville's Robert Russa Moton High School to protest its overcrowded conditions and inferior facilities compared to those of the town's white high school. That fight was taken up by the NAACP and eventually became one of the five cases that the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed in Brown v. Board of Education, whose landmark 1954 ruling declared school segregation unconstitutional."

"Johns' bronze statue is the latest addition to Emancipation Hall, a gathering place in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center that houses many of the 100 statues representing each state. Every state legislature gets to honor two notable individuals from its history with statues in the Capitol. For over a century, Virginia was represented by George Washington and, until a few years ago, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee."

At age 16, Barbara Rose Johns organized hundreds of students to walk out of Farmville's Robert Russa Moton High School to protest overcrowded conditions and inferior facilities compared with the white high school. The NAACP took the case and it became one of five cases reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. The Court's 1954 landmark ruling declared school segregation unconstitutional. Johns' bronze statue now occupies Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, replacing the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which was removed in December 2020 at Governor Ralph Northam's request. Virginia's Commission on Historical Statues selected Johns from a list of 100 names and five finalists.

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