LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Tourists visiting the U.S. Capitol will now be greeted by a new statue of the man in black himself - Mr. Johnny Cash. NPR congressional reporter Barbara Sprunt reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHNNY CASH SONG, "RING OF FIRE")
BARBARA SPRUNT, BYLINE: Johnny Cash, born in Kingsland, Ark., in 1932, is most often associated with country music. But his body of work went beyond any one genre. He was country and blues, gospel and rock 'n' roll. His daughter, Rosanne - one of a hundred Cash family members at the unveiling of the statue - called her dad a man of wonderful contradictions.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROSANNE CASH: He opposed the war in Vietnam, and he went to perform for the troops. He performed for Nixon at the White House and respectfully declined to sing one of the songs the President requested, which criticized welfare recipients, because Dad thought it denigrated the poor.
SPRUNT: The bronze statue of Cash shows him with a guitar slung across his back and a Bible in his hand. Each state gets two statutes representing notable figures from its history as part of the Statuary Hall Collection. The Arkansas legislature voted in 2019 to replace the state's two statutes. The governor of Arkansas at the time, Republican Asa Hutchinson, pushed for the change.
ASA HUTCHINSON: James Clarke was a segregationist. You had Uriah Rose that was a Confederate sympathizer, and they do not reflect what our state represents today.
SPRUNT: Hutchinson said he wanted to showcase a modern representation of Arkansas in the halls of the Capitol.
HUTCHINSON: Whenever you look at who tells the story of Arkansas' progress, one should be in the Civil Rights era. And that's Daisy Bates, who's an icon that guided the Little Rock Nine and the desegregation of Central High School - what an incredible story of courage. And, of course, the other one is Johnny Cash.
SPRUNT: Mark Stielper, a Cash historian who was friends with the artist for 20 years, said Cash wasn't chosen because of his musical accolades but because of what he stood for.
MARK STIELPER: He was an early pioneer in singing about the injustices done to the Native Americans in this country. He sang at prisons. He got up there, and he sang of the poor and the beaten down, living in the hopeless, hungry side of town.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAN IN BLACK")
JOHNNY CASH: (Singing) Hopeless, hungry side of town.
SPRUNT: He said Cash was a titanic figure - one that spoke to the conscience of American society, and now a figure that's memorialized in the Capitol for all who pass through.
Barbara Sprunt, NPR News, the Capitol.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAN IN BLACK")
J CASH: (Singing) I wear the black for those who've never read or listened to the words that Jesus said about the road to happiness through love and charity. Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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