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BY BRIAN CARLTON 

AND SHARON JOHNSON 

The Farmville Herald 

Earlier this week, we marked a holiday unique to Virginia. April 23 is Barbara Rose Johns Day, honoring the Civil Rights leader and Prince Edward County icon. And what we see, through a variety of situations, is that decades later, Johns still has an impact, both here in Farmville and across the Commonwealth. 

This year, for example, the Virginia Council for the Social Studies debuted its inaugural Barbara Johns Youth Change Agent Award. The award is inspired by Johns’s legacy of fighting for equal educational opportunities at her high school in Farmville in 1951. 

“As we went to create this new award, we really did want to highlight a heroine of Virginia, but also honor her legacy and honor how impactful this is not only for schools in Virginia but schools across the nation,” said Samantha Futrell, president of the Virginia Council for the Social Studies. “Barbara Johns made all these sacrifices to essentially do what she believed was right and galvanize her fellow students into action.” 

The Youth Change Agent Award highlights a K-12 Virginia student who “contributes to their local community through service efforts, positively impacts their school climate through equity initiatives, and exhibits leadership capabilities and/or potential,” according to the criteria listed on the award’s website. 

The student who is chosen for the award receives $250 and recognition at the Virginia Council for Social Studies annual conference. 

“Really anyone who found themselves embodying the spirit of Barbara Johns could apply for this award,” said Futrell. “I was really excited not only for the opportunity for students to nominate themselves, but also for teachers and supervisors to nominate students in their community who they thought to be embodying the characteristics of Barbara Johns – her spirit of being a change agent in her community.” 

JOHNS HEADS TO THE CAPITOL 

Everyone who visits the U.S. Capitol from 2025 on will see a familiar site. The image of Barbara Rose Johns is almost ready to take her place in Statuary Hall. 

It’s been a lengthy process. In December 2020, the Commission for Historical Statues in the United States Capitol voted to replace a statue of Robert E. Lee, deciding one of the Farmville civil rights leader should represent Virginia. Two statues represent each state in the Statuary Hall of the Capitol. Virginia’s other statue is of George Washington. 

But the work to put Barbara Rose Johns in that second space stalled, due to the pandemic. Now however, things are moving forward again. Johns was chosen from a group of five finalists, to be represented in the U.S. Capitol. Commission members said they decided on Johns because of her connection to the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which found that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional. 

Preliminary approval of a much smaller version of the statue was given back in September. And now 72-year-old sculptor Steven Weitzman has completed the final version. The black granite base is three feet tall, then the statue of Johns herself is seven feet. All total, from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head, the statue stands at 10 feet, five inches. There is no label of the Moton School on the statue, because Moton Museum officials confirmed the school had no insignia or other logo at the time. 

And to be clear, while we say this is the final version, there’s still a few more steps to take. The statue has now been approved by the Office of the Architect of the U.S. Capitol. Now it is at a foundry in Chester, Pennsylvania. The sculpted version was done in clay. The foundry is transforming it into bronze, after which it’ll be photographed again, looking for one final approval from the Office of the Architect. 

“(The foundry) told me that they can have the finished bronze by the end of summer, beginning of fall,” Weitzman said, giving a timeline of when we could possibly see this move forward. After that, it’s time for Congress to get involved. 

CONSIDERING JOHNS’ LEGACY 

The legacy of Barbara Rose Johns means a lot to both her community and beyond. That’s not something easily summed up in one article, so we expanded. We dedicated the entire April issue of Farmville the Magazine to Barbara Rose Johns Day, so you can see and hear from different people who were and are impacted by the Civil Rights icon. Those copies are available for free at shops around downtown Farmville, as well as The Herald office. You can also read one more perspective in today’s opinion page, from Prince Edward County High student Diona Jennings, about what Barbara Rose Johns means to her.