US Capitol unveils statue of teen civil rights icon Barbara Rose Johns, taking Robert E. Lee's spot

The U.S. Capitol on Tuesday began displaying a statue of a teenaged Barbara Rose Johns as she protested poor conditions at her segregated Virginia high school, a pointed replacement for a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that was removed several years ago.

An unveiling ceremony of the statue representing Virginia in the Capitol took place in Emancipation Hall, featuring Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Virginia's congressional delegation and Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger.

Johnson said more than 200 members of Johns' family were on hand, listening on as the ceremony included renditions of “How Great Thou Art,” “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round” and “Total Praise” performed by the Eastern Senior High School choir from Washington.

"We are here to honor one of America’s true trailblazers, a woman who embodied the essence of the American spirit in her fight for liberty and justice and equal treatment under the law, the indomitable Barbara Rose Johns,” Johnson said.

Johns was 16 years old in 1951 when she led a student strike for equal education at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. The students’ cause gained the support of NAACP lawyers, who filed a lawsuit that would become one of the five cases that the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed in Brown v. Board of Education. The high court’s landmark 1954 decision declared “separate but equal” public schools unconstitutional.

Johns later married the Rev. William Powell and became Barbara Rose Johns Powell, raised five children and was a librarian in the Philadelphia Public Schools. She died at 56 in 1991.

“She put God first in her life. She was brave, bold, determined, strong, wise, unselfish, warm and loving,” said Terry Harrison, one of her daughters.

The statue shows the young Johns standing to the side of a lectern, holding a tattered book over her head. Its pedestal is engraved with the words, “Are we going to just accept these conditions, or are we going to do something about it?” It also features a quote from the Book of Isaiah, “And a little child shall lead them.”

The statue replaces one of Lee that was removed in December 2020 from the Capitol, where it had represented Virginia for 111 years. The removal occurred during a time of renewed national attention over Confederate monuments after the death of George Floyd and was relocated to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

“The Commonwealth of Virginia will now be properly represented by an actual patriot who embodied the principle of liberty and justice for all, and not a traitor who took up arms against the United States to preserve the brutal institution of chattel slavery,” Jeffries said at the ceremony.

Johns' sister, Joan Johns Cobbs, read from a journal entry by Johns: “And then there were times I just prayed, ’God, please grant us a new school, please let us have a warm place to stay where we won’t have to keep our coats on all day to stay warm. God, please help us. We are your children too.'”

The Johns piece is part of the National Statuary Hall Collection at the Capitol, in which each state can contribute two statues. The other statue representing Virginia is of George Washington.

National Statuary Hall displays 35 of the statues. Others are in the Crypt, the Hall of Columns and the Capitol Visitor Center. Johnson said the Johns statue will be placed in the Crypt.

Former Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam had requested the removal of the Lee statue. In December 2020, a state commission recommended replacing Lee’s statue with a statue of Johns.

The Johns statue, sculpted by Steven Weitzman of Maryland, received final approval from the Architect of the Capitol and the Joint Committee on the Library in July.

Johns is also featured in a sculpture at the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial outside the state Capitol in Richmond. The former high school is now a National Historic Landmark and museum.

“It's an incredibly profound moment, a moment to stand in a tar shack classroom with a hot potbelly stove as a heater, tar paper walls, shabby desks, right where 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns courageously organized her schoolmates and stood up to the lie — the lie was separate but equal,” Youngkin said of the museum.

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This story corrects that Jeffries said “chattel slavery,” not “childhood slavery.”

People take photos of a statue of Virginia civil rights activist Barbara Rose Johns, whose statue will replace one of Robert E. Lee as one of Virginia's two statues on display at the Capitol, at a dedication ceremony Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

People take photos of a statue of Virginia civil rights activist Barbara Rose Johns, whose statue will replace one of Robert E. Lee as one of Virginia's two statues on display at the Capitol, at a dedication ceremony Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

A statue of Virginia civil rights activist Barbara Rose Johns, whose statue will replace one of Robert E. Lee as one of Virginia's two statues on display at the Capitol, is unveiled Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

FILE - This Monday, Dec. 21, 2020 photo provided by the Office of the Governor of Virginia shows a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee being removed from the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington. (Jack Mayer/Office of Governor of Virginia, File)

FILE - This Monday, Dec. 21, 2020 photo provided by the Office of the Governor of Virginia shows workers removing a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington. (Jack Mayer/Office of Governor of Virginia, File)

FILE - Joan Cobbs, left, sister of civil rights legend Barbara Johns, shakes hands with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, right, after a portrait of Barbara Johns, center, was unveiled in the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Va., Sept. 17, 2010. (Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)

Home Depot got a lift in the first quarter from professionals and also homeowners stocking up on spring supplies.

Profit fell from its first quarter last year, but the national home improvement retailer beat Wall Street expectations.

"The underlying demand in our business was relatively similar to what we saw throughout fiscal 2025, despite greater consumer uncertainty and housing affordability pressure,” CEO Ted Decker said Tuesday.

The housing market has been static as Americans wrestle with rising costs and other economic concerns.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat in April, another lackluster showing for the housing market during what’s traditionally its busiest time of the year. Existing home sales edged up 0.2% last month from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million units, the National Association of Realtors said a week ago. Sales were unchanged compared to April last year.

The U.S. housing market has been in a slump dating back to 2022, the year mortgage rates began climbing from historic lows that fueled a homebuying frenzy at the start of this decade. American consumers are cautious as gas prices fuel an inflation surge of 3.8% in the U.S. Labor Department figures last week showed that gasoline prices are up more than 28% compared with a year ago.

For the three months ended May 3, Home Depot earned $3.29 billion, or $3.30 per share. A year earlier the Atlanta company earned $3.43 billion, or $3.45 per share.

Removing certain items, earnings were $3.43 per share. That's better than the $3.41 per share that analysts surveyed by FactSet were calling for.

Revenue climbed to $41.77 billion from $39.86 billion, which topped Wall Street's expectations for revenue of $41.59 billion.

Sales at stores open at least a year, a key gauge of a retailer’s health, rose 0.6%. In the U.S., comparable store sales climbed 0.4%.

Customer transactions declined 1.3% in the quarter, but the amount that shoppers spent increased to $92.76 per average receipt from $90.71 a year ago.

Home Depot still anticipates fiscal 2026 total sales growth of about 2.5% to 4.5% and comparable sales growth to be about flat to up 2%.

Shares rose more than 1% before the opening bell Tuesday.

FILE - A view of the exterior of the Home Depot improvement store, in Niles, Ill., on Feb. 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

FILE - A "For Sale" sign is displayed outside a home on Friday, July 11, 2025, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)