One of the perks of covering Congress is being able to see the Capitol statue after hours.
But it’s not always the best.
The same thing happened on Friday a week ago. After the House hearings and my television show on public broadcasting aired, around 6:30 PM ET, I walked through Statuary Hall in the Capitol and headed home.
That’s where I met Billy Graham.
Just to be clear, I’m not a pastor.
But a 7-foot bronze statue of Graham.
Billy Graham statue to be unveiled at Capitol Hill next week: ‘It’s a great honor’
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), the North Carolina delegation, Billy Graham’s family and others attend the unveiling of a statue honoring the Rev. Billy Graham at the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol, Thursday, May 16, 2024. Participated. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, via Getty Images)
Graham was wrapped in plastic from head to toe. The deep blue padded blanket encased him from his triceps to his shoelaces. His face was just barely visible through the tight plastic, but his nose and hair were sticking out. The outline of his face was visible, but there seemed to be very little detail.
Workers removed the pedestal on which Graham’s statue would later stand several feet away. The Bible was engraved 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.'” Bible Verse, John 14:6 Read the simple Christian cross.
Capitol officials erected a statue of Graham at the end of Statuary Hall near the main hallway leading to the House chamber.
Billy Graham, pastor’s son, reflects on Capitol statue honoring his father
Workers planned to erect the statue right next to a statue resembling Washington state native Marcus Whitman. Whitman is decked out in buckskin. Like Graham, Whitman clutches a Bible, but he also carries a saddlebag. Whitman is known as a 19th century physician and missionary who guided people from the East onto his trails in Oregon. Cayuse Indians killed Whitman near Walla Walla, Washington after attempting to convert him to Christianity.
Each state has two statues in its Capitol collection. Graham’s statue is one of his two in North Carolina. He will replace the late North Carolina Governor Charles Aycock (D), who had ties to racists.
About a week after I first spotted Graham’s statue, lawmakers officially unveiled it in a grand ceremony.
“This is a major corridor through Congress and the Capitol. Literally millions of people will pass through it,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said at the statue’s unveiling. “I think it’s providence here. I’m just saying I think it’s a perfect placement.”
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson speaks at the unveiling of a statue of the late Southern Baptist minister Billy Graham (left) in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on May 16, 2024. (Robert Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)
“As members of Congress walk past his statue, I hope they will remember the standards of faith, ethics, and civility that he exemplified throughout his extraordinary life,” said Republican Sen. Thom Tillis. Told.
But here’s the problem.
Last Thursday night, I finished taking live shots of progressive House staffers demonstrating about Israel and headed out the door around 6:30 p.m. Here, too, workers toiled around the Graham statue. Workers lifted Graham’s portrait from its pedestal. It currently stands in the middle of the Statue Hall. But Graham’s vestments were different. The minister’s body was wrapped in cushioning material. The rest of the statue is covered in see-through plastic, which rolls up from the knees to wrap around the head. A thick tan industrial belt held the plastic tightly together like a package ready to be shipped by UPS. For some reason, a brown bent piece of cardboard was sticking out of the torso.
REV. A statue is unveiled at the Capitol in honor of Billy Graham.
The cloak on the package was so enveloping that there was no way to tell that the outline of the person was Graham.
I thought they were just adjusting the statue after the ceremony.
The next night, around 6:45 p.m., I stepped off the plane again and headed home, this time to do a television program about a raucous House Oversight Committee meeting and Republican efforts to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. I stormed through Statuary Hall.
Graham was nowhere to be seen.
As fate would have it, Graham never permanently occupied such a high-traffic spot in the House chamber. Both Johnson and Tillis were wrong in hoping that lawmakers would take notice of Graham’s presence, or his Bible, on their way to the House floor to vote. Graham’s stay in Statuary Hall turned out to be temporary; he was there only for the ceremony.
Artist Kevin Kresse is pictured with a clay bust of Johnny Cash on April 23, 2024 in Little Rock, Arkansas. (AP Photo/Mike Pesoli)
Workers moved Mr. Graham downstairs to where Aycock was standing. This is the basement of the Capitol, directly below the rotunda. Members of Congress don’t often go through there. However, visitors taking an official tour of the Capitol will certainly tour the crypts.
Graham is currently barely standing on the north side of the Capitol, on the Senate side of the building. To Graham’s right is a statue of Roger Sherman of Connecticut. Sherman served in the House of Representatives and the Senate. But Mr. Sherman is best known for engineering the so-called “Connecticut Compromise.” So the Founders settled on a bicameral legislature. Each state would receive representatives based on population. However, each state would have equal representation in the Senate. Immediately to the left of Graham is a hallway leading to the Capitol’s Senate Building, but not the Senate chamber. Across from the entrance is a statue of South Carolina representative John C. Calhoun. Calhoun served in the House of Representatives and as vice president under Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
The feet of statues in the Capitol’s collection may be cast in bronze. However, many bronze statues have been moved in recent years. The Capitol just dedicated a new statue from Arkansas, Daisy Bates, two weeks ago. Bates was a civil rights leader and counsel to the Little Rock Nine. She will replace Uriah Rose, known as a partner at the legendary Rose law firm in Little Rock. It was here that Hillary Clinton later became the firm’s first female partner. President Clinton’s White House deputy counsel Vince Foster also worked there. His body was later found in Fort Marcy Park near Washington. Authorities and a bicameral congressional investigation later ruled Foster’s death a suicide.
Arkansas will erect a second new statue in September: of Johnny Cash, a country music legend who will succeed the late Arkansas Governor James Clark, who had ties to white supremacy.
Arkansas State Capitol statue replaced with civil rights leader Daisy Bates and singer Johnny Cash
Cash’s statue will be placed in the Capitol Visitors Center, which is the entrance for most visitors to the Capitol. Cash was also the first musician in the Capitol Collection. The Bates statue is located in Statuary Hall, directly across from Rosa He Parks, a symbol of the civil rights movement. Congress gave the green light to the Parks statue. Not the state. The Bates statue stands right next to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and is one of two statues of him in Mississippi.
They have replaced 17 of the 100 statues in the Capitol since 2000.
“My father would be a little uncomfortable with this being here, because he wants to focus on the One he preached,” Graham’s son, Franklin Graham, said at the dedication. .
The Johnny Cash Show – Air Date: February 24, 1971. Reverend Billy Graham (left) appears alongside country music legend Johnny Cash. (Photo Credit: ABC Photo Archive/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
In other words, Graham is a new figure in the Capitol collection. However, only until September.
But in late summer or early fall, I think we’ll be leaving the Capitol around 6:30. Perhaps after a live broadcast about Congress struggling to avoid a government shutdown later that month. You will meet someone similar to Johnny Cash who is ready to commit.
And at that time on a Friday night, Cash is not “The Man in Black.”
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He’ll probably be wrapped in a layer of thick blue padding. A heavy belt secures the plastic exoskeleton around the center of the cache. But within a few days the cache will be towering. Ready to serenade the crowds of visitors to the U.S. Capitol.
