The unveiling of a statue honoring Daisy Bates, a prominent U.S. civil rights leader and journalist, is set to take place at the U.S. Capitol. Bates played a crucial role in desegregating Arkansas public schools during the 1950s.
The bronze statue, depicting Bates with a newspaper in one hand and a notebook and pen in the other, will be unveiled on Wednesday.
Bates, who passed away in 1999 at the age of 84, co-published an Arkansas newspaper dedicated to the civil rights movement. She also served as the president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP.
This statue unveiling comes alongside the announcement that another statue from Arkansas, honoring the late singer Johnny Cash, will also be added to the Capitol later this year, according to the office of House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson.
Each state is permitted to choose two statues for the National Statuary Hall and surrounding prominent hallways in the U.S. Capitol. In 2019, the Arkansas state legislature decided to replace both of its existing statues, Uriah Rose and James Clarke. Rose was a mid-1800s Little Rock attorney with Confederate sympathies and a founder of the American Bar Association. Clarke, a late 1800s governor who later became a U.S. senator, was a proponent of white supremacy.
In recent years, there has been a trend of removing or renaming statues, monuments, and buildings honoring historical figures associated with racist policies. Bates' statue will join others such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, aviator Amelia Earhart of Kansas, inventor Thomas Edison of Ohio, and Chief Standing Bear, a central figure in an 1879 court case that recognized Native Americans as "persons" under the law.
Johnny Cash, known as the "Man in Black" for his distinctive attire, passed away in 2003 at the age of 71. His iconic songs, including "Ring of Fire," "A Boy Named Sue," and "I Walk the Line," have left a lasting impact. His statue portrays him with a guitar slung over his back and holding a Bible.