The landmark Washington National Cathedral unveiled new stained glass windows with a theme of racial justice on Saturday, filling the space that once had four windows honoring the Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

The new windows depict a march for justice by African Americans, descendants of the very people who would have remained in slavery after the Civil War if the side the officers were fighting for had prevailed.

The cathedral had its old windows removed after Confederate symbols became prominent in the recent racial violence.

The dedication service was attended by many clergy from historically black churches in the Washington area, as well as leaders of social justice organizations. The prayers, Bible readings and short speeches were interspersed with gospel music and spirituals, as well as the contemporary song Heal Our Land.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, read excerpts from the Rev. Martin Luther King

‘

Jr.’s 1963 Birmingham Jail letter.

A week earlier she had spoken at the 60th anniversary of

Birmingham church bombing

that left four young black girls dead.

Injustice everywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, she read from King’s famous message while imprisoned in Alabama. America’s purpose is freedom. We will win our freedom.

The new windows, entitled ‘Now and Forever’, are based on a design by artist Kerry James Marshall. Stained glass artist Andrew Goldkuhle created the windows based on that design.

In the new work, African Americans march on foot or in a wheelchair from left to right through the four windows. Some march in profile; some look directly at the viewer with signs proclaiming FAIRNESS and NO DIRTY PLAY. Light streams through the sky-clear panes of white and blue above the figures.

Marshall, born in Birmingham,

Unfortunately,

in 1955 invited anyone viewing the new windows, or other works of art inspired by social justice, to imagine themselves as the subject and author of a never-ending story

is

that has yet to be told.

The setting is particularly meaningful in the enormous neo-Gothic cathedral, which regularly hosts ceremonies related to major national events. It is filled with iconography depicting the American story in glass, stone and other media. Pictures

including range of

presidents

,Unpleasant

famous cultural figures and state symbols.

But the Lee and Jackson windows told a story that was not a true story, according to the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of the cathedral. They were installed and donated in 1953 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy,

The windows praised generals who fought for a cause that sought to forever entrench slavery in our country, Hollerith said.

He added: You cannot call yourself the National Cathedral, a house of prayer for all people, if it has windows that are deeply offensive to a large segment of Americans.

The cathedral has accompanied the window replacement with a series of public forums discussing the legacy of racism and how monuments were used to burnish the image of the Confederacy as a noble lost cause.

The new windows will also be accompanied by a poem by scholar Elizabeth Alexander, president of the Mellon Foundation. The poem American Song is engraved beneath the windows.

A single voice rose, and then another, it says. We must tell the truth about our history. May this portal be the place where the light enters.

Alexander said in an interview Friday that the poem referred both to the literal light from the windows, which she said beautifully illuminates the surrounding stonework, and to the figurative light that allows us to see each other fully and in community.

The setting is important in a shrine that is also a communal space, a space that tourists visit, a space where the nation mourns, Alexander said. The story [the windows] tell is one of collective movement, of progress, of people fighting and defending the values ​​of fairness for all.”

The removal of the old windows followed the use of Confederate imagery by the racist gunman who massacred members of a black church in Charleston.

SC, South Carolina,

in 2015, and by protesters at a 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Virginia

,

which ended with the death of a counter-protester.

The original windows, complete with Confederate battle flags, had depicted Lee and Jackson as holy figures, with Lee bathed in rays of heavenly light and Jackson welcomed to paradise by trumpets after his death. Those windows are now preserved by the cathedral.

The cathedral is also the seat of the Presiding Bishop and Diocese of Washington of the Episcopal Church.

The bishop of the diocese, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, joined Hollerith in delivering opening addresses at the dedication.

Hollerith recalled the decision to remove the South windows.

They contradicted our call to be a house of prayer for all, he said, adding: Much work remains to be done.

_

__Associated Press writer David Crary contributed to this report. ___Associated Press religion reporting receives support through the APs

cooperation

with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.