Johnny Cash will now be saying “Hello Out There” to countless visitors to the U.S. Capitol after congressional leaders gathered to unveil a statue of the legendary musician.
Tuesday's ceremony was attended by hundreds of people and included Republican and Democratic party leaders, along with Cash's family.
The statue is the most recent to be unveiled in Congress and the first to be dedicated to a professional musician, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, noted in his opening remarks.
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A statue of Johnny Cash was unveiled on Tuesday. (Getty Images)
“Johnny Cash deserves to be honored in this way. He embodied the American spirit in a way that very few people can. He was an ordinary man. He loved to fish. He felt the pain of loss. He was the son of Southern farmers and the Great Depression,” Johnson said. “Americans feel a kinship with Johnny Cash.”
He acknowledged that some might wonder why Cash is being honored in the same category as other historical pioneers, presidents and dignitaries.
“The answer is simple: America is more than laws and politics,” Johnson said. “Johnny Cash gave voice to the struggles of the oppressed, the marginalized and the all too often forgotten.”
“When I forgot about the factory line worker, Johnny Cash was singing about the man who built cars, one by one. When I forgot about the military, Johnny Cash was singing about the man in black who remembered the 100,000 people who died in the war. [flag]Just when we had forgotten about Native Americans, there was Johnny Cash, reminding us of the stony but legitimate tears of the Apache.”
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Speaker Mike Johnson holds up a photo of Cash in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. (Getty Images)
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) noted in his remarks that music has long been a part of American culture.
“It's in the DNA of this great nation that artistic creativity has been recognized from the beginning as vital to our growth, our culture and our American experiment,” Jeffries said. “Throughout his life, he created a catalog of work so powerful that it's impossible to pigeonhole it into a single genre. At different times, he played country, blues, rock 'n' roll and gospel.”
“Johnny Cash has always been a uniquely American man. He was a pioneer, a change agent and a trendsetter.”
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Cash's family members also attended the ceremony, with Admiral Cary Cash, a pastor and the musician's nephew, delivering the opening prayer.
The statue depicts Cash carrying a guitar and holding a Bible, and is one of three Bible-holding statues in the Capitol, the other being Billy Graham.
Top Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives spoke at the event. (Getty Images)
Each state will select two statues to be placed in the halls of the U.S. Capitol.
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The Arkansas Legislature voted in 2019 to replace statues of two lesser-known figures with statues of Cash and civil rights activist Daisy Bates, the latter of which debuted earlier this year.
The Cash statue was created by Little Rock artist Kevin Kresse.
It's a tribute to Cash's own roots, having grown up on a cotton farm in Dyess, Arkansas, before becoming one of the best-selling musicians in history.
