Washington National Cathedral Dedicated New Stained-Glass Windows by Kerry James Marshall That Speak to a Just Society

“Now and Forever,” a new social justice-themed stained-glass window installation by Kerry James Marshall was unveiled at the Washington National Cathedral on Sept. 23. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

An original poem by Elizabeth Alexander will be enshrined in stone at the base of the stained-glass windows designed by Kerry James Marshall

NEW STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS with contemporary images that speak to fairness and a just society were recently unveiled at Washington National Cathedral. Renowned artist Kerry James Marshall designed the installation, which was commissioned by the church to replace windows that featured the Confederate flag and paid homage to Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

The Cathedral hosted a public dedication to celebrate the new window installation and a mark a new chapter in the church’s history as a “house of prayer for all people.” It was an august occasion. A series of notable speakers delivered remarks, including Marshall, poet Elizabeth Alexander, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Cathedral leadership. There was music and song throughout the program and a blessing of the windows.

“Even the God of the Cathedral didn’t have a permanent remedy against the evils that we humans seem destined to inflict on one another,” Marshall said at the dedication.

“Today’s event has been organized to highlight one instance where change of symbolism is meant to repair a breach of America’s creation promise of liberty and justice for all, and to reinforce those ideals and aspirations embodied in the Cathedral’s structure and its mission to remind us that we can be better, and do better, than we did yesterday, today. Now is the time, because tomorrow is not promised to any of us.”

Sept. 23, 2023: Kerry James Marshall delivers remarks at the dedication of “Now and Forever” at Washington National Cathedral. When the artist began speaking, he said: “I had hoped that everything that I had to say could be said by the windows that were made because indeed I put a lot of thought, a lot of effort and a lot of myself into what I wanted those windows to do. But I’ve been asked to say a few words and so I will.” | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

He continued: “I am deeply humbled, incredibly grateful, for the opportunity and hope that the things the windows propose continue to be a catalyst for the kind of transformation that the Cathedral stands for, what this nation stands for…and what I hope we all will embody and stand for and bring forward ourselves.”

Titled “Now and Forever,” the project encompasses four windows, installed side-by-side. Referencing the civil rights marches that were instrumental in gaining critical rights and freedoms for African Americans, Marshall created a series of images of Black people protesting.

Most of the figures are wearing jeans and carrying signs in front of their faces, rendering them anonymous. Marshall included a range of body types. One figure is sitting in a wheelchair. The windows do not portray a specific historic event, but rather represent an enduring pursuit of justice.

The protest signs read “Fairness,” “Not,” “No,” and “No Foul Play.” The lower parts of the windows are rendered in colored glass, while much of the upper portions depicting the signs, are designed with white glass allowing natural light to flood through, bringing a brightness and sense of hope to the works and the meaning they are intended to convey.

Kerry James Marshall in his Chicago studio working on his stained-glass window design. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

MARSHALL’S ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION of what social justice looks like today, replaced unvarnished representations of the Confederacy and all that it stood for, including preserving a way of life that depended on the enslavement of Black people if the Confederate South had won the Civil War.

Donated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the previous windows were installed in 1953 and remained on view for six decades. Enshrined in the Cathedral’s architecture, the windows were prominently located on the southern face of the nave, displaying symbols of racism and hate in the main worship space where congregants sit for services. The windows sent a message that stood in stark contrast to the Cathedral’s mission and vision.

The Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral, spoke directly to this striking disconnect during the dedication on Sept. 23.

“Simply put, these windows were offensive, and they were a barrier to the ministry of this cathedral, and they were antithetical to our call to be a House of Prayer for All People. They told a false narrative, extolling two individuals who fought to keep the institution of slavery alive in this country. They were intended to elevate the Confederacy, and they completely ignored the millions of Black Americans who have fought so hard and struggled so long to claim their birthright as equal citizens,” Very Rev. Hollerith said.

“I want to be clear that this is not the end of the end of the Cathedral’s journey; rather, today is an opportunity to recommit ourselves, and to recommit this Cathedral, to join that march toward fairness for all Americans, but especially for African Americans. There is a lot of work yet to be done to confront systemic racism, to foster racial reconciliation and to be repairers of the breach, both in the past, the present and in our future.”

One of two Confederate flags featured in the original windows is removed. The original windows featuring Confederate symbols were donated by United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1953. They were removed in 2017. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

Then-Cathedral Dean Gary Hall was the first to raise concerns about the windows and what they symbolized. In 2015, he called for their removal after a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. Nine Black people, including the church’s pastor, were killed by a 21-year old gunman—a self-proclaimed white supremacist.

In response to Hall’s admonition, the Cathedral embarked on a thoughtful, measured process to discuss the issue and determine how to move forward that involved clergy, scholars, and museum officials, and several public forums. The efforts unfolded over the course of highly fraught years of political and racial division in the country—presidential leadership that emboldened white supremacists and heightened police killings of Black people that led to nationwide social justice protests in the summer of 2020 (amid the pandemic) that resonated around the world.

A five-member task force was formed in 2016 and the windows were removed in 2017, after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. Eric L. Motley, deputy director of the National Gallery of Art, and Chase Rynd, former director of the National Building Museum, co-chaired the Cathedral’s Window Replacement Committee. (Motley and Rynd also served on the task force.) The committee focused on reimagining the stained-glass works and in 2021 announced Marshall had been commissioned to create new social justice-themed windows.

Artist Kerry James Marshall and Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral, on the steps of the church in September 2021. During his dedication remarks, Marshall said the two bonded over early Southern country blues. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

MARSHALL LIVES AND WORKS in Chicago. His critically recognized practice is focused on the African American experience and the Black figure—which he nearly always depicts with black paint. He makes thought-provoking portraits and grand history paintings and is particularly invested in increasing the representation of Black people and black subjects in museum collections and on museum walls. Garnering tens of millions of dollars, his work is the most expensive at auction of any living Black artist.

“We chose Kerry James Marshall because he’s an eminent, well-respected, highly regarded artist, unquestionably one of the most important artists in the world. But also an artist who is Black who uses the color black to convey the absence and the presence of the individual,” Very Rev. Hollerith said in “Now and Forever: A Story of Freedom on the Move,” a short video documentary the church produced about the project.

The committee asked Marshall to respond to the following prompt:

We seek to tell a story of resilience, endurance, and courage that gives meaning and expression to the long and arduous plight of the African American, from slavery to freedom, from alienation to the hope of reconciliation, through physical and spiritual regeneration, as we move from the past to present day. The artist will capture both darkness and light, both the pain of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow, as well as the quiet and exemplary dignity of the African American struggle for justice and equality and the indelible and progressive impact it has had on American society. Each artist should respond in his or her own creative way to these ideals and aspirations, framing both the earthly and the divine, within the sacred space of the Washington National Cathedral.

Nov. 9, 2022: Kerry James Marshall and Andrew Goldkuhle, Washington National Cathedral’s stained-glass artisan, review color options for the artist’s window design. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

“You’re starting anything and you gotta try and define what the purpose of the work you’re doing is going to be,” Marshall said in the documentary. “So you try to figure out what it is supposed to be about. And then once you figure out what it is supposed to be about, then you try to figure out what the most appropriate way to represent it is going to be.”

Marshall worked with stained-glass for the first time and completed the project in collaboration with Andrew Goldkuhle, Washington National Cathedral’s stained-glass artisan. He fabricated the windows based on Marshall’s design in his Hanover, Va., studio.

“Now and Forever” references the civil rights protests that dominated a critical period in Black history and American history and have resonated in the decades since as a spectrum of populations and groups—including migrant workers, women, the LGBTQ+ community, Black Lives Matter, and union employees—have adopted the same strategy, seeking rights and fairness by marching, taking their concerns to the streets, and carrying signs that state their demands.

The images Marshall created for the Cathedral windows are in conversation with Alma Thomas’s “March on Washington” (1964), an important civil rights painting that features an abstracted representation of a crowd waving protest signs. The images also bring to mind contemporary works such as “Untitled (I Am a Man)” (1988) by Glenn Ligon and “I Am a Man” (2016) by Hank Willis Thomas.

KERRY JAMES MARSHALL, “Now and Forever,” 2023 (stained-glass, four-window installation), Washington National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. Marshall told the Washington Post that he requested a nominal, symbolic fee from the Cathedral, charging only $18.65 for the commission, referencing the year 1865 when the Civil War ended and the 13th amendment was ratified abolishing slavery. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

Their works are informed by historic photographs by Ernest Withers of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn. Calling for safe working conditions and better wages after two Black garbage collectors were crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck, the strikers held up signs that read: “I Am a Man.” Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke to the group the night before he was assassinated in 1968.

Key pieces of the original stained-glass design remain in the new windows. Marshall chose to keep ornate quatrefoils featuring a cross and an armored figure and surrounding elements that crown the tops of the windows. The Cathedral addressed this decision in an FAQ about the project:

In his words, “I’m not so interested in completely erasing the history of the relationship of those windows of the Cathedral, and the replacement of the original windows with what’s there now. I’m OK with a little bit of tension. I mean, maybe I’m OK with a lot of tension.”

Marshall’s window installation joins a rich collection of art and architecture across stained-glass, stone carving, wood carving, wrought iron, and needlepoint that beautifies the Cathedral spaces.

Kerry James Marshall and Elizabeth Alexander in front of the “Now and Forever” window installation. The Cathedral commissioned Alexander to write a poem, “American Song” that accompanies the stained-glass work. In his dedication remarks, Marshall said: “Elizabeth Alexander, who is a great friend of mine, has created such an incredible piece of poetry that complements the windows and helps to amplify and deepen the message that the windows mean to present…” | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

THE DEDICATION OF ‘NOW AND FOREVER,’ featured religious and lay speakers. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), Marshall’s stepdaughter spoke. She was elected for the first time to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022. The Congresswoman read from Ecclesiastes (3:1-8), which states, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Gates, the historian and Harvard University professor, quoted Romans (12:9-18). The scripture begins, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” Justice Jackson gave a reading from King’s 1963 Letter From Birmingham Jail.

A critical aspect of the window replacement project, the Cathedral commissioned a poem by Alexander, the poet and president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to accompany the stained-glass installation. Following the official dedication and blessing of the windows, Alexander stood before the new installation and gave the first public reading of her poem, titled “American Song.” She read in part:

American song, American psalm.

A single voice raised, then another. We
must tell the truth about our history.

How did we get here and where do we go?

Walk toward freedom. Work toward freedom.
Believe in beloved community.

In the coming months, “American Song” will be carved by hand into the stone tablets beneath Marshall’s windows. The project is expected to be completed in 2024.

Earlier in the program, Marshall took a moment during his remarks to reflect on the role of visual art in society and its potential to make an impact.

“I’ve spent my entire life making pictures, so I don’t hold any delusions about the transformative power of artworks. Not enough people ever see them to interrupt the dynamism and challenges we face living from day to day,” Marshall said. “But what they can do, however, is to invite us and anybody who sees them to reflect on the propositions they present, and to imagine one’s self as a subject and an author of a never-ending story that is still yet to be told. Now this is what I’ve tried to do, tried to accomplish with words, images and colored glass, for right here and for right now.” CT

The National Cathedral’s replacement windows are funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project. Benefactors also include the Hearthland Foundation, founded Kate Capeshaw and Steven Spielberg (sponsoring the stone tablets inscribed with poetry by Elizabeth Alexander), and the Ford Foundation, which is supporting public programming around racial justice and racial reconciliation issues. Alexander is the president of the Mellon Foundation.

FIND MORE about the Washington National Cathedral’s dedication ceremony in the official event program

READ MORE about the Cathedral windows, selection of Kerry James Marshall, and the artist’s initial thoughts about the project on Culture Type

Sept. 23, 2023: Kerry James Marshall delivered remarks at the dedication program, speaking about transformation, symbolism, the role of art in society, and what he intended to represent with his design for the new stained-glass windows. | Video by Washington National Cathedral

The Cathedral produced “Now and Forever: A Story of Freedom on the Move,” a 20-minute documentary about the stained-glass windows designed by Kerry James Marshall. | Video by Washington National Cathedral

DESIGN

Nov. 9, 2022: Kerry James Marshall and stained-glass artisan Andrew Goldkuhle review the artist’s concept for the windows in his Chicago studio. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

Nov. 9, 2022: Working drawings for Kerry James Marshall’s stained-glass window design. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

June 18, 2023: Kerry James Marshall in his Chicago studio working on the design for “Now and Forever.” | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

June 18, 2023: Kerry James Marshall in his Chicago studio working on the design for “Now and Forever.” | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

June 18, 2023: Kerry James Marshall and the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral, discuss the windows project in the artist’s Chicago studio. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

FABRICATION

July 27, 2023: Washington National Cathedral’s stained-glass artisan Andrew Goldkuhle working on Kerry James Marshall’s design. Goldkuhle inherited the craft from his father Dieter Goldkuhle (1938-2011), who fabricated more than 60 windows for the Cathedral. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

July 27, 2023: Schematics for Kerry James Marshall’s stained-glass window design at Goldkuhle Studio in Hanover, Va. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

July 27, 2023: Stained-glass artisan Andrew Goldkuhle fabricating Kerry James Marshall’s window design. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

July 27, 2023: Panels from Kerry James Marshall’s window installation at the studio of stained-glass artisan Andrew Goldkuhle, who fabricated the artist’s design. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

INSTALLATION

KERRY JAMES MARSHALL, “Now and Forever” (2023) is installed at the Washington National Cathedral by Andrew Goldkuhle. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

KERRY JAMES MARSHALL, “Now and Forever” (2023) is installed at the Washington National Cathedral. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

Details (2) of “Now and Then” stained-glass windows include the signature of Kerry James Marshall on the left panel. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

DEDICATION

Sept. 23, 2023: At the windows dedication ceremony, from left, The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington; Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral; and poet Elizabeth Alexander. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

During the official dedication of “Now and Forever,” Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, blessed the windows. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

Sept. 23, 2023: Washington National Cathedral commissioned a poem by Elizabeth Alexander to accompany “Now and Forever” by Kerry James Marshall. Alexander gave the first public reading of the poem, “American Song,” at the windows dedication ceremony. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

Installation view of KERRY JAMES MARSHALL, “Now and Forever” (2023). The windows are prominently displayed in Washington National Cathedral, located on the southern face of the nave in the main worship space where congregants sit for services. | Courtesy Washington National Cathedral

Sept. 23, 2023: The Cathedral’s full dedication program featured several speakers, including Kerry James Marshall, Elizabeth Alexander, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Cathedral clergy. | Video by Washington National Cathedral

BOOKSHELF
“Kerry James Marshall: The Complete Prints: 1976–2022” is forthcoming in November. “Kerry James Marshall: Mastry,” accompanied the artist’s 35-year traveling retrospective. Other recent volumes include “Kerry James Marshall: Painting and Other Stuff,” “Kerry James Marshall,” released by Phaidon, and “Kerry James Marshall: History of Painting,” which explores the artist’s 2018 exhibition at David Zwirner Gallery in London. Elizabeth Alexander is the author of several books and poetry collections. She has featured artworks by Alma Thomas, Betye Saar, and Bob Thompson on the cover of her books. Her collection “Body of Life: Poems” features “Could This Be Love?,” a 1992 painting by Marshall on the cover. “The Light of the World: A Memoir” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography. The book is a love story about Alexander’s life with artist Ficre Ghebreyesus (1962-2012), her late husband who died suddenly at age 50. “Ficre Ghebreyesus: City with a River Running Through” accompanied an exhibition at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco and features a foreword by Alexander. Artwork by Carrie Mae Weems graces the cover of her latest book, “The Trayvon Generation.”

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