Senator Warner kicked off a 5-day trip across the Commonwealth today with stops in Woodbridge and Reston to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The Senator spoke in Woodbridge about one of his personal heroes, Barbara Rose Johns of Prince Edward County. In 1951, Barbara Johns led 450 of her fellow classmates in walking out of her segregated high school to protest the second-class conditions.

With the help of the NAACP, Barbara and the other students also filed a lawsuit to integrate the schools.

That lawsuit from Prince Edward County became one of the five cases that the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed in Brown v. Board of Education when it declared segregation unconstitutional in 1954.

"Dr. King once said, 'If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way,'" Senator Warner said. "That’s what Barbara Johns did. A small thing – that actually was a huge thing – standing-up for something right, no matter the consequences, and changing history as a result."

Senator Warner stopped for lunch at Virginia Kitchen in Herndon. He talked to the owners Linc and Julie and took a photo with the staff before heading to Purcellville's Catoctin Creek Distillery for a tour and a town hall meeting.

The Senator spoke with about 50 Loudoun business and community leaders, and took questions on his proposals for infrastructure reform,  his ongoing work to fix issues with healthcare reform and the importance of getting our deficit and debt under control.

He also toured the distillery and tried some delicious handmade Virginia spirits.