The Wales Window for Alabama is a stained-glass window by the artist John Petts created in response to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing which took place in 1963. Petts, who was based in Carmarthenshire, initiated a campaign in Wales to raise money to fund a stained-glass window to replace one of the windows destroyed in the bombing. The window was installed in the 16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama, in 1965.
The appeal for funds was conducted through the Western Mail . Petts visited Alabama and opted to construct a stained-glass image of a Black Christ. The Welsh public paid for the construction of the art work in Wales, and its delivery and installation at the 16th Street Baptist Church. [1]
In 2023 Vaughan Gething, the first black minister in the Welsh Government, visited Birmingham for the 60th anniversary of the bombing. [2]
In 1970, the designs for the window were donated to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. [3] In 2013, to mark the 50th anniversary of the bombing, Petts's original designs were displayed at the National Library of Wales. [4] In September 2018, it was reported that the church was concerned that Alabama's stormy weather would destroy the window and appealed to the public to raise funds to preserve it. [5]
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Although traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensional structures and sculpture. Modern vernacular usage has often extended the term "stained glass" to include domestic lead light and objets d'art created from foil glasswork exemplified in the famous lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany.
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. The bombing was committed by a white supremacist terrorist group. Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan (KKK) chapter planted 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church.
John Egerton Christmas Piper CH was an English painter, printmaker and designer of stained-glass windows and both opera and theatre sets. His work often focused on the British landscape, especially churches and monuments, and included tapestry designs, book jackets, screen prints, photography, fabrics and ceramics. He was educated at Epsom College and trained at the Richmond School of Art followed by the Royal College of Art in London. He turned from abstraction early in his career, concentrating on a more naturalistic but distinctive approach, but often worked in several different styles throughout his career.
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Ronald John Petts was a British artist. Petts was born in London, but is considered a Welsh artist and is known for his engravings and stained glass works.
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The 16th Street Baptist Church is a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. In 1963, the church was bombed by Ku Klux Klan members. The bombing killed four young girls in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. The church is still in operation and is a central landmark in the Birmingham Civil Rights District. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2006. Since 2008, it has also been on the UNESCO list of tentative World Heritage Sites.
Charles Eamer Kempe was a British Victorian era designer and manufacturer of stained glass. His studios produced over 4,000 windows and also designs for altars and altar frontals, furniture and furnishings, lychgates and memorials that helped to define a later nineteenth-century Anglican style. The list of English cathedrals containing examples of his work includes: Chester, Gloucester, Hereford, Lichfield, Wells, Winchester and York. Kempe's networks of patrons and influence stretched from the Royal Family and the Church of England hierarchy to the literary and artistic beau monde.
The Cathedral Church of Our Lady Help of Christians and Saint Peter of Alcantara, commonly known as Shrewsbury Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Shrewsbury, England. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury and mother church of the Diocese of Shrewsbury, which covers the historic counties of Shropshire and Cheshire.
Clayton and Bell was one of the most prolific and proficient British workshops of stained-glass windows during the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. The partners were John Richard Clayton (1827–1913) and Alfred Bell (1832–1895). The company was founded in 1855 and continued until 1993. Their windows are found throughout the United Kingdom, in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Bethel Baptist Church is a Baptist church in the Collegeville neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama. The church served as headquarters from 1956 to 1961 for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), which was led by Fred Shuttlesworth and active in the Birmingham during the Civil Rights Movement. The ACMHR focused on legal and nonviolent direct action against segregated accommodations, transportation, schools and employment discrimination. It played a crucial role in the 1961 Freedom Rides that resulted in federal enforcement of U.S. Supreme Court and Interstate Commerce Commission rulings to desegregate public transportation.
Christ Church, Lambeth, England, was founded by the Rev Dr Christopher Newman Hall in 1876 as a Congregational chapel, on Westminster Bridge Road. It drew its congregation largely from Surrey Chapel.
St Cristiolus's Church, Llangristiolus is a medieval church near the village of Llangristiolus, in Anglesey, north Wales. The village, about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the building, takes its name from the church. Reputedly founded by St Cristiolus in 610, the present building dates from the 12th and 13th centuries. Alterations were made in the 16th century, when the large east window in Perpendicular style was added to the chancel – a window which has been described by one guide to the buildings of north Wales as "almost too big to fit" in the wall. Some restoration work took place in the mid-19th century, when further windows were added and the chancel largely rebuilt.
St Gwenllwyfo's Church is a 19th-century parish church near the village of Dulas, in Anglesey, Wales. It was built between 1854 and 1856 to replace an earlier church in the parish, also dedicated to St Gwenllwyfo, which needed repair and had become too small for its congregation. The new church was built nearer to the Llys Dulas estate, whose owner contributed £936 towards the total cost of £1,417, rather than near the area where many of the parishioners lived. In 1876, Sir Arundell Neave donated 27 panels of 15th and 16th-century stained glass that had once belonged to a Flemish monastery.
St Cadwaladr's Church is a Grade I listed church in Llangadwaladr, Anglesey. The location of the current church was established in the 7th century by the Kings of Gwynedd, after whom the church is named, King Cadwaladr. The Church standing today was built in the 'T' shape perpendicular style. The nave is dated to the 12th to early 13th century and the chancel to the 14th. Later the chapels were built, the north in 1640 and the southern Bodowen Chapel in 1661. Then, during 1856 the church underwent restoration, at which time to south porch was added.