In a building where change can come slowly, the statues are no exception. But at least two new marble and bronze faces will arrive at the Capitol this year — one a Black woman replacing a Confederate general, and the other a big planner bringing a small victory for advocates of D.C. statehood.
It’s been a long journey for Mary McLeod Bethune, the civil rights activist who died in 1955. She will become the first Black woman to join the National Statuary Hall Collection, a group of 100 statues of important people, with two donated by each of the 50 states.
Her more than 6,000-pound likeness will take its place in the Capitol sometime in the coming year as a gift from Florida, after state leaders decided she was a better example of an “illustrious” citizen than Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith. His statue stood for nearly a century.
