Barbara Johns Honored by AG Jason Miyares, Gov. Youngkin #BHM
RICHMOND, VA — Barbara Johns (1935-1991) was honored yesterday at Attorney General Jason Miyares’ office in the building names after her: The Office of Attorney General Barbara Johns Building in Richmond. On April 23, 1951, when she was 16, Barbara Johns led a student strike for equal education at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. Virginia. The protesting students would soon win the legal support of the NAACP and file the lawsuit Davis v. Prince Edward County which would become part of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring "separate but equal" in public schools is unconstitutional.
Attorney General Jason Miyares hosted a ceremony yesterday and went over all of the legal history that emerged from Barbara Johns’ efforts. A portrait of Johns was unveiled as part of a memorial exhibit honoring her and many of the Robert Russa Moton High School students who protested segregated schools in 1951. Present at the ceremony were Johns’ sister and two brothers, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his wife Suzanne and State Senator Lionell Spruill. Also in attendance was Cam Paterson, Executive Director of the Robert Mussa Moton Museum in Farmville, Va.
“Governor Youngkin and I often mention and talk about the quiet heroes… the reality is that it’s often the case — that the real heroes don’t come to us as TV journalists or super heroes or movie starts. The real quiet heroes, those history changing heroes are those who possess the courage of a thousand and they achieve greatness often when you least expect it,” Attorney General Miyares said during his remarks. Governor Youngkin and Senator Spruill also spoke echoing the Attorney General’s remarks.
“Barbara Johns was a young vibrant 16-year-old who at the time lived in Virginia in a society that did not recognize her potential and that did not recognize her dignity. In fact did not even recognize her humanity. Barbara saw this face of injustice and said: Enough,” Miyares continued.
“At the time of the Moton School strike many of those key moments that we all know of during the civil rights movement that built momentum toward equality had not yet happened. When Barbara Johns had the courage to stand up it was four years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. It was nine years before the the famous Greensboro Four — Ezell Blair, David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil — sat at the Woolworth’s lunch counter all because they wanted to be served just like everyone else. It was 12 years before Dr. Martin Luther King gave some of the most nation-altering words in American history when he was there got collect a promissory note that Mr. Jefferson first penned in our Declaration of Independence that we are indeed endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights such as life liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Attorney General Miyares also stated going over the historic timeline of the civil rights movement and where Barbara Johns’ activism fit in the sweep of history.
“Why are we here? Because for a nation to grow and heal it must never forget,” said Attorney General Miyares who also pointed out that three fourths of the plaintiffs in what would become the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case were Virginians.
“They were those students from Moton,” he added.
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