Washington National Cathedral announced Thursday it has chosen contemporary artist Kerry James Marshall, renowned for his wide-ranging works depicting African American life, to design new stained-glass windows with themes of racial justice that will replace a set with Confederate imagery that were removed in 2017.
Cathedral_Confederate_Windows_05735 Artist Kerry James Marshall, who has been selected to design a replacement of former Confederate-themed stained glass windows that were taken down in 2017 at the National Cathedral, stands in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021. The Cathedral has also commissioned Pulitzer-nominated poet Elizabeth Alexander to pen a poem that will be inscribed in the stone beneath the new windows. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
National_Cathedral_Windows_66910 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)
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
National_Cathedral_Windows_46721 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)
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
National Cathedral The interior of the National Cathedral hosts a multi-colored glow with stained glass windows reflected on its interior arches. (WTOP/Kate Ryan)
WTOP/Kate Ryan
National Cathedral The interior of the National Catheral reflects the light shining through stained glass windows.
Old confederate windows Another view of the bay where the Confederate windows were once on display. (WTOP/Kate Ryan)
WTOP/Kate Ryan
Artist Kerry James Marshall Artist Kerry James Marshall speaking, at left, partially obscured, Eric Motley, Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Art. (WTOP/Kate Ryan)
WTOP/Kate Ryan
Marshall, Eric Motley, Rynd L-R EricMotley, deputy Director of the National Gallery of Art, the very reverend Randolph Marshall Hollerith, Dean of the Cathedral, Kerry James Marshall speaks at the podium and Chase Rynd, former Director of the National Building Museum. (WTOP/Kate Ryan)
WTOP/Kate Ryan
APTOPIX_Cathedral_Confederate_Windows_57206 Artist Kerry James Marshall poses for a portrait in the National Cathedral after being selected to design a replacement of former confederate-themed stained glass windows that were taken down in 2017, in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
National_Cathedral_Windows_88629 Two windows where former confederate-themed stained glass were taken down in 2017 are boarded up at the National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021. The Cathedral has commissioned artists Kerry James Marshall to design a replacement and 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)
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Cathedral_Confederate_Windows_69641 Artist Kerry James Marshall stands in the main hall of the National Cathedral after being selected to design a replacement of former confederate-themed stained glass windows that were taken down in 2017, in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021. The Cathedral has also commissioned Pulitzer-nominated poet Elizabeth Alexander to pen a poem that will be inscribed in the stone beneath the new windows. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Cathedral_Confederate_Windows_10510 FILE - This Tuesday, April 13, 2021 file photo shows the Washington National Cathedral is seen at sunset. Washington National Cathedral has chosen contemporary artist Kerry James Marshall, renowned for his wide-ranging works depicting African-American life, to design new stained-glass windows with themes of racial justice to replace windows with Confederate imagery that were removed from the landmark sanctuary in 2017. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Cathedral_Confederate_Windows_95222 FILE - This Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017 file photo shows stained glass windows depicting two Confederate generals at the Washington National Cathedral. Washington National Cathedral has chosen contemporary artist Kerry James Marshall, renowned for his wide-ranging works depicting African-American life, to design new stained-glass windows with themes of racial justice to replace windows with Confederate imagery that were removed from the landmark sanctuary in 2017. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Washington National Cathedral announced Thursday it has chosen contemporary artist Kerry James Marshall, renowned for his wide-ranging works depicting African American life, to design new stained-glass windows with themes of racial justice that will replace a set with Confederate imagery that were removed in 2017.
The landmark sanctuary said in a statement that the four windows will tell “a new and more complete” story of the nation’s racial history. Poet Elizabeth Alexander will write a poem to be inscribed in stone tablets alongside the windows, overlaying older ones that venerated the lives of Confederate soldiers.
The project is expected to be completed by 2023.
The windows will replace a set that honored two Confederate generals, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, with saint-like reverence and had included a Confederate flag. The cathedral removed them in 2017, prompted by a larger national reckoning over Confederate imagery and white supremacy in the wake of deadly right-wing attacks in Charlottesville, Virginia, that year and in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. The window openings have been covered with plywood since 2017.
The setting is particularly significant in the massive neo-Gothic cathedral, which is filled with iconography depicting the American story in glass, stone and other media, with images ranging from presidents to famous cultural figures and state symbols.
The cathedral, also the seat of the Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop and Diocese of Washington, regularly serves as the setting for ceremonies tied to major national events.
In replacing the windows, the cathedral acknowledged a need to correct what it called a “false narrative of what America once was.”
The old windows “were a barrier to our mission and impediment to worship in this place, and they had no place being in sacred space,” the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of the cathedral, said in a Thursday news conference.
“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the cathedral to not only create beautiful art but to stake a claim about what and who we value,” he added.
Marshall, who made his first visit to the cathedral this week, said it’s too soon to say what the new windows will look like.
“It was really important for me to come here and really get a sense of what the place is, what’s already here, what the mission they’ve tried to accomplish is, and then how I might be able to fit whatever it is the cathedral needs in order to fulfill its ambition for these windows … into that space,” he said at the news conference.
He noted that the cathedral set a “monumental” goal of having the windows depict the pain as well as the dignity of “the African-American struggle for justice and equality.”
“This is something that’s actually going to take a lot of time, because history itself, as most people know, is a very complicated narrative,” he said.
Hollerith called Marshall “one of the greatest artists of our time” and praised Alexander as “one of our nation’s most eloquent and compelling voices.”
This will be Marshall’s first work in the stained-glass medium after a long and acclaimed career using a variety of media to create portraits and other works depicting Black life. Marshall was a MacArthur Fellow in 1997.
Alexander, president of the Mellon Foundation, recited one of her poems at the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama and has published multiple books including Pulitzer Prize finalists.
She said in a statement that she was honored to be part of the cathedral’s “effort to ensure that those who worship within its sanctuary know that it is truly a space for all people, and that the stories relayed through its sacred walls, windows and other iconography represent the truth of our nation.”
The cathedral has loaned the Robert E. Lee window to the National Museum of African American History and Culture for a new exhibit, “Make Good the Promises: Reconstruction and Its Legacies.” The museum said the window represents the “myth-building and the nationwide intimidation of African Americans through the embrace of Confederate symbols.”
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