- National guards summoned to defend the U.S. Capitol stopped for a photo with a statue of a civil rights icon just a week after a pro-Trump crowd desecrated its corridors.
- The tribute to Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger, is the first full-body statue of a black American on the United States Capitol.
- Americans were shocked by the pro-Trump crowd that surrounded the Capitol in a deadly attack and carried hate symbols like Nazi-inspired confederate flags – historic enemies that American troops defeated in America’s deadliest wars.
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National guards summoned to defend the U.S. Capitol stopped for a photo with a statue of a civil rights icon a week after a pro-Trump crowd profaned its hallways with hate symbols.
A small group of black military men gathered next to the statue of Rosa Parks in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall, a monument that depicts her refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger who had just boarded the bus. His courageous act drew national attention and inspired widespread civil disobedience to the laws of the Jim Crow era, such as bus segregation, which the Supreme Court ultimately ruled unconstitutional. The tribute to Parks is the first full-body statue of a black American at the United States Capitol, according to the Capitol architect.
Authorities are sending 10,000 guards to the DC area on Saturday to support law enforcement, as the FBI warns that there may be days of armed people trying to interrupt or even threaten President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
On January 6, a mob urged by President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol and stormed the police in a riot that caused lawmakers to run for cover and left five dead. Crowd members wore clothes that called for a second Holocaust and the symbols of armed gangs and carried Confederate and other Nazi-inspired flags – historic enemies that US troops defeated in America’s deadliest wars.
Black Capitol officials told the New York Times it would be a long time before they felt safe at work again. And black and Latino caretakers on the Capitol told Insider that it was “degrading” to clean up the crowd of whites who broke windows, scrawled threats and spread feces on walls.
Lawmakers who arrived at the Capitol on Wednesday, when the House holds impeachment hearings on Trump’s role in the riot, found ranks of guards around the Capitol, some resting next to their guns and shock shields. The National Guard is expected to be in the area until Biden takes office.