Washington National Cathedral, one of the country’s most visible houses of worship, announced Wednesday that it would remove Confederate battle flags that are part of two large stained-glass windows honoring Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee.
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The windows in question memorialize Confederate Gens.
Washington National Cathedral says it will remove the images of a Confederate battle flag from its stained glass windows because, officials say, it is an image of hatred and racial supremacy.
In the latest example of the growing effort to remove images of the controversial emblem from public places, the Washington, D.C., cathedral will use plain glass to replace the sections the flags are now on, Reuters reported.
The National Cathedral window panes in question were installed in 1953 in order “foster reconciliation between parts of the nation that had been divided by the Civil War”, Hall said past year, according to the Post.
“The Lee-Jackson windows call the question of race and the legacy of slavery, and instead of turning away from that question, the cathedral has made a decision to lean into it”, said the Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, the cathedral’s canon theologian and a member of the Task Force.
The windows will remain in place for the duration of future public discussions, the cathedral said.
A five-person task force that examined the windows’ symbolic power said the flags can not remain on the cathedral as they have thus far in the building’s history.
The task force cited recent events to justify their decision in their report.
Hall a year ago said the National Cathedral had installed these windows to “foster reconciliation” between the North and the South.
Asked if removing the panels featuring the flag but keeping the depictions of the Confederate generals was a compromise, Kevin Eckstrom, the cathedral’s chief communications officer, said, “The windows have prompted the questions and now we hope they’re going to be part of the discussion that helps us get to the answers”.
They sought to “reframe the Civil War and present these two generals as saintly, exemplary Christians” when these two men were in fact ardent supporters of Hall called an “unjust cause … the sin of slavery”.
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“I believe that the Charleston shootings have really been a kind of defining moment for America and for American institutions”.
