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Statues of Presidents – ranging from George Washington to Ronald Reagan – stand in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
The walls of the Capitol complex are lined with inventors such as Thomas Edison of Ohio and Utah’s Philo Farnsworth – who is credited with helping create television.
There are statues of American heroes, ranging from Helen Keller to Amelia Earhart to astronaut Jack Swigart.
IN CONGRESS – LIKE BASEBALL – THERE’S ALWAYS NEXT YEAR
Religious figures pop up, including Junipero Sera from California and Father Damien of Hawaii.
Civil rights figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks are well represented.
There are even writers. Will Rogers of Oklahoma and Willa Cather of Nebraska.
But there were no musicians.
Until now.
He’s known simply as the Man in Black.
“Johnny Cash walked the line. It wasn’t a straight line. Much more like the Arkansas River. Jagged. But always moving forward,” said Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, R-Ark., at a recent dedication ceremony.
A side-by-side of Johnny Cash in 1966 and his newly unveiled statue in Emancipation Hall. (Getty Images)
Perhaps this is an example of Congress moving forward, stretching out into the arts and pop culture.
“Some may ask the question, ‘Why would a musician have a statue here in the halls of the great American republic?’” queried House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. “And the answer is actually pretty simple. America is about more than law and politics.”
Cash’s statue is the latest addition to the Capitol collection. Each state receives two statutes on Capitol Hill. Individual states determine who should represent them. The Arkansas state legislature voted in 2019 to swap out both of its statues. Earlier this year, officials removed the statue of Uriah Rose. He was a Confederate sympathizer and founder of the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock – associated with Hillary Clinton and other Clinton Administration figures. In exchange, they installed a statue of civil rights activist Daisy Bates. Johnny…
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