Students, faculty, staff and alumni of Bethune-Cookman University attended a watch party of the ceremony, WFTV reports.

Alumna and retired university worker Daisy Grimes, who was instrumental in advocating for the installation of Bethune’s statue at the Capitol through petitions, praised the momentous event.

“In spite of the obstacles — and she had them, not only because she was a woman but she was Black — but she never allowed any of those obstacles to prevent her from what her greater decision and desire was,” Grimes said, according to WFTV. “And that was to build this school.”

Though a replica of Bethune is the only statue representing a Black American in the Statuary Hall collection, statues of other noteworthy Black leaders including Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks, and busts of Martin Luther King Jr. and Sojourner Truth are in the Capitol building, the Post reports.

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