One of the benefits of covering Congress is that you can see the Capitol statues after hours.
But not always at its best.
Such was the case a week ago Friday. Around 6:30 p.m., I walked through Statuary Hall in the Capitol after a television program about the House hearings and public broadcasts. I’m going home.
That’s where I met Billy Graham.
Not a priest, mind you.
Instead, it’s a seven-foot-tall bronze statue of Graham.
Billy Graham statue scheduled to be unveiled at U.S. Capitol next week: ‘A huge honor’
Louisiana House Speaker Mike Johnson, the North Carolina delegation and members of the Billy Graham family attend the unveiling of a statue honoring the Rev. Billy Graham in the National Statuary Hall of the Capitol on Thursday, May 16, 2024 ceremony. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Graham was covered from head to toe in plastic wrap. A dark blue, padded blank hugged Graham from his triceps to his shoelaces. You can barely see Graham’s face through the tight plastic. But his nose and mop of hair stood out. The outlines of Graham’s face are clearly visible. But it’s almost like there aren’t any details there.
Workers knocked down the pedestal of Graham’s statue a few feet away. It features the Bible printed on the base.
“Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” reads the Bible verse John 14:6 and a simple Christian cross.
Congressional officials erected a statue of Graham on the edge of Statuary Hall, near the main thoroughfare to the House chamber.
A preacher’s son.Billy Graham reflects on statues honoring father in U.S. Congress
Workers will erect the statue next to a statue of Marcus Whitman in Washington state. Whitman was dressed in deerskin. Like Graham, Whitman was carrying a Bible—but also a saddlebag. Whitman is best known for his work as a 19th-century physician and missionary guiding people from the east through the Oregon Trail. Cayuse Indians killed Whitman near Walla Walla, Washington because he tried to convert them to Christianity.
Each state has two statues in the Capitol collection. Graham’s statue is one of two from North Carolina. It replaces the late North Carolina governor Charles Aycock (D), who had ties to racists.
About a week after I first saw the Graham statue, lawmakers officially unveiled it in an elaborate ceremony.
“This is the main corridor that goes through Congress and the Capitol. Literally millions of people will walk through it,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said at the statue’s dedication ceremony. “I think it’s just providence that it’s here. I’m just saying I think it’s a perfect location.”
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks during the unveiling of a statue of the late Southern Baptist pastor Billy Graham (left) in the Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on May 16, 2024. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)
“I hope that as members of Congress walk past his statue, they will reflect on the standards of faith, morals and decency he embodied throughout his extraordinary life,” said Republican Senator Thom Tillis.
But here’s the problem.
Last Thursday night, I finished a live shoot for the Progressive House staff about Israel and headed out the door around 6:30 p.m. Workers are again hard at work around the Graham statue. Workers hoisted Graham’s effigy from the base. It now stands in the center of Statuary Hall. But Graham’s vestments were different. The priest’s body was wrapped in a soft padding. Clear plastic wraps around the rest of the statue – wrapping around the knees and wrapping around the head. Thick tan industrial straps hold the plastic tightly, like a package ready to be shipped at UPS. Whatever the reason, a brown, curved piece of cardboard sticks out from the torso.
revised edition.Billy Graham statue dedicated in U.S. Congress
The packaging cloak was wrapped so tightly that it was impossible to tell that this person was Graham.
I guess they were just adjusting the statue after the ceremony.
The next night—around 6:45 p.m.—I went off the air again and went home. This time, I produced a television piece about the raucous House Oversight Committee meeting and the Republican attempt to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. I walked through Statuary Hall.
Graham was nowhere to be seen.
As fate would have it, Graham would not forever occupy such a crowded seat in the House chamber. Both Johnson and Tillis mistakenly hoped that lawmakers would notice Graham’s presence or the Bible as they walked to the House floor to vote. Graham’s stay at Statuary Hall proved to be temporary. He was just here for the ceremony.
Artist Kevin Kresse displays a clay bust of Johnny Cash on April 23, 2024 in Little Rock, Arkansas. (AP Photo/Mike Pesoli)
Workers have moved Graham downstairs to where Aycock stands. This is the crypt of the Capitol, located directly beneath the Rotunda. Lawmakers don’t pass through there often. But if visitors are part of an official Capitol tour, they’ll certainly be wandering through the crypts.
Graham now stands on the north side of the Capitol, almost on the Senate side of the building. To Graham’s right is a statue of Connecticut’s Robert Sherman. Sherman served as a congressman and senator. But Sherman is best known for designing the so-called Connecticut Compromise. This is where the Founding Fathers decided to create a bicameral legislature. Countries will receive representatives commensurate with their population. But every state has equal representation in the Senate. Immediately to the left of Graham is a passage leading to the Senate wing of the Capitol, but not the Senate chamber. Across from the entryway is a statue of John C. Calhoun representing the State of South Carolina. Calhoun served in the House of Representatives and as vice president under Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
The feet of the statue in the Capitol collection may have been cast in bronze. But lately many of the statues are being moved. Just two weeks ago, the Capitol dedicated a new statue from Arkansas: Daisy Bates. Bates was a civil rights leader and adviser to the Little Rock Nine. She succeeds Uriah Ross. Ross is a partner at the prestigious Ross Law Firm in Little Rock. This is where Hillary Clinton would later become the firm’s first female partner. Clinton White House deputy counsel Vince Foster also worked there. His body was later found in Fort Marcy Park near Washington. Officials and bipartisan congressional investigations later ruled Foster’s death a suicide.
Arkansas will get its second new statue in September: Johnny Cash. The country music legend will succeed the late Arkansas Gov. James Clark, who was associated with white supremacy.
Arkansas statue at U.S. Capitol to be replaced by civil rights leader Daisy Bates and singer Johnny Cash
A statue of Cash will stand in the Capitol Visitor Center, which is the entrance to the Capitol for most visitors. Cash is also the first musician to be included in the Capitol collection. Bates’ statue is located in Statuary Hall, directly across from civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Congress approved the Parks statue. Not a country. The Bates statue is located next to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and is one of two statues in Mississippi.
Since 2000, they have replaced 17 of the 100 statues in the Capitol.
“My dad would be a little uncomfortable here. Because he wanted the focus to be on the one he was preaching about,” Graham’s son, Franklin Graham, said at the dedication ceremony.
The Johnny Cash Show – Air date: February 24, 1971. (ABC Photo Archives/Disney Universal Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
So Graham is a rookie statue in the Capitol collection. But only until September.
But by late summer or early fall, I think I’ll be leaving the Capitol around 6:30. Perhaps it was after a live report later that month about Congress’ efforts to avert a government shutdown. I’d meet a guy like Johnny Cash, ready to give.
At that moment Friday night, Cash will no longer be the “Man in Black.”
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He may be wrapped in a thick layer of blue padding. A heavy-duty belt secures the plastic exoskeleton around Cash’s midsection. But in a few days, Cash would step up. Get ready to serenade visitors to the U.S. Capitol.
