At the start of this year’s Black History Month, DHR Community Outreach Coordinator LaToya Gray-Sparks looks back at the unveiling ceremony of the Barbara Rose Johns statue in the United States Capitol and recalls how Black leaders like Johns have shaped and inspired her work.

By LaToya Gray-Sparks | DHR Community Outreach Coordinator

When I was a little girl growing up in Richmond, Virginia, I remember February being such an important month. It was Black History Month, which gave me the opportunity as a budding historian to learn about the monumental Black leaders who paved the way for people like me. I can recall devouring every book that I could about Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks. These legends faced hardship and inequality yet fought to change the status quo so that future generations would have a better life. When times were tough and uncertain, I often relied on those readings to persevere and continue on, knowing that I owed so much to those who came before me.

As much as I had consumed materials on the Civil Rights Movement, it was not until graduate school and my current role as the Community Outreach Coordinator at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) that I learned about the Civil Rights’ history that took place in Virginia. This includes events like the sit-ins at libraries in Alexandria and Petersburg; the first stop of the Freedom Rides of 1961 in Fredericksburg; and Bloody Sunday in Danville—to name a few events. Somewhere along the way, I also learned about the story of a young, courageous, and consequential trailblazer named Barbara Rose Johns.

On April 23, 1951, Johns led 450 students in a walkout from the Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. The walkout was in protest of the deplorable conditions that Black students were subjected to and to demand better facilities or desegregation. The walkout resulted in Prince Edward Schools’ inclusion in the five cases adjudicated in Brown v. Board of Education. The walkout and subsequent case had a monumental impact on education not only in Virginia, but across the country.

The Unveiling

On a cold yet electric day on December 15, 2025, a statue for Johns was unveiled in the National Statuary Hall Collection at the U.S. Capitol. According to Speaker Mike Johnson, the selection of statues for the U.S. Capitol dates to 1864. Historical figures who were selected exemplify people “who at decisive moments of their lives, chose freedom over fortune and principle over personal interest.” The process of the selection and creation of a statue for Barbara Rose Johns was initiated by a Virginia law adopted in 2020. The Virginia Commission for Historical Statues in the United States Capitol was created to lead a five-year process that included research, community engagement, the design and sculpting of the statue, and a lot of logistical planning. The journey to this monumental day began 75 years ago at a school in Farmville.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to visit the Robert Russa Moton High School. Located in the town of Farmville, the Colonial Revival one-story brick building is the site of the student walkout led by Barbara Rose Johns. I sat in the very auditorium that Johns—at the age of sixteen—rallied her classmates. I watched a re-dramatization of Johns’s powerful speech that inspired the walkout. I was shocked when viewing the pictures of the tar paper shack that Johns and her classmates attended for school—the ceiling of which would leak water during a storm. In recorded oral histories, former students talked about the pot belly stove used to heat their classroom. Many of us would clutch our pearls today of such conditions, but this is during a time in which “separate and unequal” was codified through laws and discriminatory practices.

I cannot imagine being sixteen and having the courage to lead others to stand up to racism and bigotry. During the ceremony, I choked up when hearing Joan Johns Cobbs—Johns’s sister—read an excerpt from her diary:

“[A]nd 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.”

Cobbs closed her remarks with the Bible verse Isaiah 11:6, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”

We are living in a precarious time with a lot of uncertainty. It is a time that calls for leadership that is sober-minded, focused, and empathetic. It is times like this that I think of leaders who faced adversity and prevailed. Presently, I am reflecting on the life and legacy of Barbara Rose Johns. I am grateful to Johns for her vision, bravery, and persistence. Considering Virginia’s pivotal role in American history, and with the country’s pending 250th anniversary, I cannot think of a person more fitting to be memorialized and to represent the Commonwealth of Virginia in the U.S. Capitol.