American civil rights: the Welsh connection

[editor]

This is an amazing story that rather makes me proud of my Welsh heritage.

After four young girls were killed in a racist church bombing in Alabama, an artist offered to replace their stained glass window with the Welsh people donating the cash:

In Wales, Petts, who died in 1991, decided to offer the only practical thing he could – his skills as an artist. "An*idea doesn't exist unless you do something about it," he said. "Thought has no real living meaning unless it's followed by action of some kind."

So he called David Cole, editor of the Western Mail, and shared his idea. Cole launched a front-page appeal the next day to raise the funds to replace the smashed window. "I'm going to ask no one to give more than half a crown," he told Petts. "We don't want some rich man as a gesture paying the whole window. We want it to be given by the people of Wales."

The campaign caught on, and soon the Mail was publishing pictures of black and white children in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, lining up to hand over their pocket money. Within a short time the money had been raised. Petts travelled to Alabama to get a sense of what the church wanted. "They had never heard of Wales," he said. "They had no idea where it was, but they were very quickly told something of the little country Wales was, and how it put great value on independence and freedom, to bandy with the great big words."

"The boldness – in this country – of having a black Christ speaks volumes. For the African American community that's not a stretch at all, but for many people in the white community during that time, to say that Jesus Christ was black and of African descent would be blasphemous," explains the present 16th Street pastor, Reverend Arthur Price. "But I think the major message we try to take out of the window is not so much identifying Christ's colour but knowing that Christ identifies with us. To the white community this is that the Jesus you love identifies himself with the African American community, so you are really crucifying him again when you persecute someone who does not look like you."

Today, the Wales window is embedded not just in the church's architecture but its identity. When visitors come from the Civil Rights Institute, an excellent museum cataloguing the era, just over the road, Petts's window is always part of the tour. The story the guides tell has been somewhat embellished: "When the children of Wales heard of the tragedy they saved their pennies to buy a new window." Roughly half the visitors I spoke to had heard of Wales (one thought it was London) – not a surprising number when you consider that Wales could fit into Alabama six times. But that's what, beyond the imagery, makes the window so powerful. Even as people geographically closest to them saw them as alien and inferior, people they didn't know existed not only identified them as fellow humans but sought to demonstrate support.

The bit about making sure no rich benefactor could take the glory is quite lovely.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/mar/06/racist-attack-alabama-1963-gary-younge

 

[lewislewis]

Spike Lee's film about this was great. Happy there is a Welsh connection.

 

[ddraig]

what film?

 

[agricola]

what film?

4 Little Girls

edit: It does state it at the bottom of the Guardian link, but there is a programme on BBC Radio 4 at 1130 on Thursday that goes into a bit more depth on this

 

[ddraig]

cheers

 

[Geri]

Joan Baez wrote a song about this - Birmingham Sunday

 

[ddraig]

beeb story
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12692760

"An idea doesn't exist unless you do something about it," he said.

"Thought has no real living meaning unless it's followed by action of some kind."

In an incredibly short space of time, the Western Mail's campaign had gathered force, with black and white children alike queuing in Cardiff's docklands to hand over whatever they could afford.

Within just two years, Petts had delivered his gift from Wales, a defiant and heart-warming image of a black Jesus beneath a rainbow of racial unity; his right arm pushing away hatred and injustice, the left offering forgiveness.