By The Daily Wire (World News) | Created at 2024-09-24 19:55:19 | Updated at 2024-09-30 11:37:41
5 days ago
Country music legend Johnny Cash was immortalized in bronze at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday — the first time a musician has ever been honored in the Capitol with a statue.
During a ceremony at the United States Capitol Visitor Center, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders were joined by 100 members of the Cash family as the statue of the likeness of the “Man In Black” was unveiled in the National Statuary Hall, The Tennessean reported.
Created by artist Kevin Kresse, the 8-foot-tall statue of the Arkansas native shows the “Folsom Prison Blues” hitmaker with his guitar slung over his shoulder, his head hung low, and carrying a bible in one hand with his other hand over his chest.
“Today, we have the pleasure of recognizing — get this — the first musician to ever be honored with a statue here in the Capitol,” Speaker Johnson said. “And Johnny Cash is the perfect person to be honored in that way. He was a man who embodied the American spirit in a way that few could.”
Johnny Cash Statue Unveiling in the U.S. Capitol. pic.twitter.com/ErfipvXmdC
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 24, 2024
The legendary singer’s daughter, country singer Roseanne Cash, spoke on behalf of the family at the ceremony, calling it a “remarkable day.” She added, “In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined.”
“Words cannot come close to expressing our pride to see my dad accorded such a singular privilege, the first musician in history to be included in the Statuary Hall Collection,” Cash’s daughter said. “I’m very careful not to put words in his mouth since his passing, but on this day, I can safely say that he would feel that of all the many honors and accolades he received in his lifetime, this is the ultimate.”
Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here!
“Thank you, Kevin Kresse, for capturing his very essence in bronze,” she added. “You see this statue and you know this is no one else but Johnny Cash.”
The legendary country singer died in 2003 at the age of 71. Cash’s statue is joined by one honoring civil rights leader Daisy Bates, whose statue debuted in May. The hall displays statues of two well-known residents from each state, as previously reported.
Cash and Bates’ statues replace two others that honored residents from Arkansas — 1800s attorney Uriah Milton Rose and Governor and Senator James P. Clark — following a vote in 2019 by the Arkansas General Assembly.
Kreese previously talked about how thrilled he was with the state’s decision to represent a musician like Cash rather than a “power politician from the early 1800s.”
“One of the quotes that the [Cash] family gave me was something that he told his kids,” Kresse told NPR. “It’s about the fact that we all have the ability to make a choice in this life between choosing love or choosing hate. And he says, ‘I choose love.'”
