Stained-glass fabricator Andrew Goldkuhle executes Kerry James Marshall's design in windows replacing a Confederate-themed display at the Washington National Cathedral. / Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post via Getty Images
What I Failed To See in My Church’s Confederate Stained Glass
What I Failed To See in My Church’s Confederate Stained Glass
“The majority of white worshipers walked by those windows. But Black worshipers, they knew.”
THE FORMER WINDOWS depicted Robert E. Lee and Thomas Stonewall Jackson, Confederate generals who owned slaves, betrayed their country, and fought a war to create a new country intending to preserve and expand the enslavement of Black people across the Americas. Those windows were removed and are on loan to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. They represented a discredited yet potent historical lie perpetuated for generations and with lasting impact known as the “Lost Cause.” In the years after the Civil War, when Black Americans and others rose up in self-determination, monuments and windows like ours were conceived, paid for, and installed all over the United States. They became, and remain, a rallying cause for white supremacist movements in our day — movements that are growing.
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