In this 2017 photo, employees set up scaffolding to remove stained-glass windows depicting Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at Washington National Cathedral. 

Photo by Evelyn Hockstein for the Washington Post / Getty Images

Image via smithsonianmag.com



Regarded by many as the “Spiritual Home of the Nation,” Washington National Cathedral is famous for its ornate exterior and vaulted ceilings. The iconic landmark is also known for its 215 stained glass windows, which bathe the building’s interior and its more than 400,000 annual visitors in streams of pastel light.

In 2017, however, the Washington National Cathedral made headlines for an entirely different reason. That year, protests erupted on the streets of Washington, D.C. due to the fact that two stained glass window panels paid tribute to Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, both of whom were Confederate Generals who led the Southern armies during the American Civil War.

On September 6, 2017, the Cathedral Chapter voted to remove the offending panels, driven by widespread demonstrations over racial injustice and the blatant commemoration of the nation’s dark past.

“[The windows] were a barrier,” explained Kevin Eckstrom, the Chief Communications Officer for the Washington National Cathedral. “People didn’t feel comfortable praying in that space with those two men looking over their shoulder. And ultimately, that is what the Cathedral is supposed to be: it’s a house of prayer for people and not a museum.”


The old windows depicting Robert E. Lee will be replaced with new windows with a racial justice theme.

National Cathedral
Image via dcist.com




Donated in 1953 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the two panels not only featured Lee and Jackson but the Confederate flag as well. These weren’t considered a problem at first; however, rising awareness about systemic racial injustice has led to the realization that they actually told a rather false story.


“They were a whitewashed version of history,” said Eckstrom, in an interview with the website, The Black and White. “What makes this Cathedral unique is that we don’t only tell a biblical story, but also an American story. You can’t talk about the Civil War without talking about slavery, and the windows made no mention of it.”


Randolph Hollerith, the Cathedral Dean, also shared similar sentiments. In a statement to the New York Times, James Marshall explained: “The windows became barriers for people to feel fully welcome here. For nearly 70 years, these windows and their Confederate imagery told an incomplete story; they celebrated two generals, but they did nothing to address the reality and painful legacy of America’s original sin of slavery and racism.”


Fortunately, the Washington National Cathedral is finally taking steps to ensure that its stained glass windows tell a genuinely American story. More than four years after the panels were taken down, it was announced that they would be replaced by ones designed by Kerry James Marshall, a contemporary artist renowned worldwide for his incredible artworks that depict African-American life.


7 am Sunday Morning — Kerry James Marshal 

Image via Biblioklept



Meanwhile, Pulitzer-nominated poet Elizabeth Alexander was also commissioned to pen a poem that would be inscribed onto stone tablets, which would be placed alongside the new stained glass windows.


While James Marshall has yet to indicate what his designs will look like, he did pay a visit to the Cathedral last September 22, 2021. In a conversation with the media, he explained: “Right now, I don’t have a clear concept of what I think I will do. It will have to be work that is able to synthesize a multiplicity of ideas and sentiments about what the country represents for all of us. There will be some kind of imagery that presents itself as an invitation to [reflect] on the meaning of America now.”


James Marshall is sure about one thing, though – Black figures will be used as a central part of the new stained glass windows.


“There are likely to be figures in the windows, some of them are likely to be Black figures,” he said in an interview with The Black News Channel. “But I can’t say this is all you are going to see there because I think the scope of the windows needs to be more expansive than just that.”


Artist Kerry James Marshall speaks at a news conference after being selected to design a replacement of former Confederate-themed stained glass windows that were taken down in 2017 at the National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021. The Cathedral has also commissioned Pulitzer-nominated poet Dr. Elizabeth Alexander to pen a poem that will be inscribed in the stone beneath the new windows. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Image via bnc.tv




Renowned for a slew of breathtaking paintings, such as “Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self” (1980), “Untitled (La Venus Negra)” (1992), and “Many Mansions” (1994), James Marshall has been a mainstay in many of the country’s most famous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. His significant contributions to the scene have also led to him being regarded as “one of the nation’s most eloquent and compelling voices.”


Despite Marshall’s decades-long art career, the commission for the Washington National Cathedral will be his first time working on a stained glass medium.


He’s clearly prepared to rise to the challenge, though, telling the media: “How do you create something that draws people to it? That has the capacity to elevate their conception of what it means to be an American and their conception of what it means to engage with the complex narratives of history that we all have some relationship to? That’s really what my job is going to be.”