Statues of the Presidents – George Washington to Ronald Reagan -Stand in the US Capitol Rotunda.
The walls of the Capitol complex are adorned with inventors such as Thomas Edison of Ohio and Philo Farnsworth of Utah – who are credited with helping create television.
are statues of american heroFrom Helen Keller to Amelia Earhart to astronaut Jack Swigart.
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Religious figures emerge from California, including Junipero Serra and Father Damien Hawaiian,
Civil rights figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks are well represented.
Also a writer. Will Rogers of Oklahoma and Willa Cather of Nebraska.
But there were no musicians there.
So far.
He is known simply as the Man in Black.
At a recent dedication ceremony, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, R-Ark., said, “Johnny Cash walked the line. It wasn’t a straight line. Much like the Arkansas River. Jagged. But always moving forward.”
Side-by-side of Johnny Cash in 1966 and his newly unveiled statue at Emancipation Hall. (Getty Images)
maybe this is the one example of congress Moving forward, expanding into art and pop culture.
“Some may ask the question, ‘Why would there be a statue of a composer in the Hall of the Great American Republic?’ House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., questioned. “And the answer is really very simple. America is about much more than law and politics.”
The Cash statue is the latest addition to the Capitol collection. Every state gets two statutes on Capitol Hill. Individual states determine who should represent them. Arkansas State Legislature Voted to swap both of its statues in 2019. Earlier this year, authorities removed the statue of Uriah Rose. He was a Confederate supporter and founder of the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock – connected to Hillary Clinton and others in the Clinton administration. In return, they installed a statue of civil rights activist Daisy Bates. The statue of Johnny Cash replaces the late Senator James Clark, D-Ark., a segregationist.
The bronze statue practically welcomes you with the singer’s golden-necked, signed introduction: “Hello. I’m Johnny Cash.”
The statue depicts the singer holding a Bible in his left hand. A Martin D-35 acoustic guitar hangs on Cash’s back, neck down. He is wearing a tuxedo shirt with ruffles. A box-back coat hangs around him like a cape. And, of course, there are cowboy boots.
Moments after the cloth was removed from the statue to reveal Cash, his sister, Joan Cash, approached him. Now blind, Joan spent many moments touching and feeling the outline of her brother’s bronze version – which has now become a keepsake for the ages.
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This statue symbolizes the duality of cash. Zen like quality. Yin and yang. light and dark.
“He was open about crossing the line between Clean Cut Johnny and Beaten Cash,” Sanders said. “Johnny’s good. Cash causes all the trouble.”
The Governor made reference to Cash recording his albums in Folsom State Prison and San Quentin.
“It’s not hard to imagine that he, too, looked out over the prison crowd and saw a version of himself staring back at him,” Sanders said.
He said Cash “wrote that he felt like a walking dream of death.”
Johnson observed that apart from Cash, “no one else would be singing in Folsom Prison.”
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, holds a portrait of musicians Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley during an unveiling ceremony in Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, U.S., Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. A group of bipartisan lawmakers unveiled a statue of musician Johnny Cash that will represent the state of Arkansas in the Capitol’s National Statue Hall collection. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Johnny Cash sang about farmers swept away by flood waters in “Five Feet High and Rising”. Those songs seemed the most important in his repertoire, Johnson said, because they focused on “the forgotten men and women”.
They were some of the most important songs in Cash’s repertoire.
Apart from his “Man in Black” stage persona, darkness shrouds Johnny Cash forever. It produced devastating lyrics that would have bordered on hyperbole had they not been so resonant.
Cash in Big River wrote, “I taught the crying willow to cry.”
Cash in Hurt admits, “I will let you down. I will hurt you.”
Cash sings in one of his most famous songs, “I fell into a burning ring of fire.” “And it burns, burns, burns.”
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Easy.
Yet brutally true.
“He was the Shakespeare of the South,” said Cash’s daughter, singer Rosanne Cash. “A lot of poetry oozed from him. He was a flawed but extremely humble, kind and compassionate man, whose spirit was one of brilliant generosity.”
His daughter said that Cash “loved people who failed and made terrible mistakes, but who acknowledged their failures before their God and themselves because he himself knew what darkness he had struggled with all his life. Is.”
But despite his inner demons, Cash’s daughter said she learned a special lesson from her father.
“He said to us kids many times in moments of conflict or anger, ‘Kids, you can choose love or hate. I choose love,'” Roseanne said.
Johnny Cash performing on stage (GAB Archive/Redferns)
In fact, those words are inscribed on the concrete base of the statue for all to read.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Cash inspired generations of artists. He said that long before Jay-Z dropped the Black Album or Black Sabbath practically created the heavy metal genre, the Men in Black had seized ownership of the color for themselves.
“Snoop Doggy Dogg put it differently. He called Johnny Cash ‘a real American gangster,'” Jeffries said, laughing. “That’s a compliment from Snoop Doggy Dogg.”
Even lawmakers read Cash’s lyrics.
“‘I can literally see gravel in his gut and spit in his eye,'” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., referencing Cash’s country hit A Boy Named Sue. “I loved that song. I loved it so much that I resolved to memorize the lyrics.”
And while many people who went to Congress never went heard about Few people are honored with Capitol statues, everyone has heard Johnny Cash.
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“You’ll hear Johnny Cash classic countryYou’ll hear Johnny Cash on classic rock. You’ll hear Johnny Cash on gospel,” said Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark. “It’s a testament to his ability to transcend those musical genres.”
As Johnny Cash sang, “I’ve been everywhere.”
Now he is in the US Capitol.
But he will stay here.
In permanent residence.
