The Wales Window of Alabama
On the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Cerith Mathias retraces the story of the Wales window.
September 15th 2023 marks the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. A shocking act of racism that killed four girls attending Sunday school. It was the deadliest moment of the US civil rights era, a tragedy that ushered in sweeping legislative changes that had been long called-for across the country.
Events that day also began deep connections between Wales, the church and the movement for racial equality following a national gesture of goodwill and compassion in the form of a stained-glass window known as the Wales Window, created by the artist John Petts. It forever linked two families on opposite sides of the Atlantic — the Petts family in Wales and the family of the Reverend John Cross, the church’s Pastor in Alabama.
To grasp fully the significance of the change brought about by the actions of their fathers, Cerith Mathias spoke to the children of those changemakers John Cross and John Petts to ask about their memories of that time and what the Wales Window of Alabama means all these years later.
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