TheWales Window for Alabama is astained-glass window by the artistJohn Petts created in response to the16th Street Baptist Church bombing which took place in 1963. Petts, who was based inCarmarthenshire, initiated a campaign inWales to raise money to fund a stained-glass window to replace one of the windows destroyed in the bombing. The window was installed in the16th Street Baptist Church,Birmingham, Alabama, in 1965.[1]
The appeal for funds was conducted through theWestern Mail. Petts visited Alabama and opted to construct a stained-glass image of aBlack Christ. Donations from the Welsh public paid for the construction of the art work in Wales, and its delivery and installation at the 16th Street Baptist Church. According to Theodore Debro, a former chair of 16th Street Baptist Church, the church was initially reluctant to receive the artwork but ultimately agreed to accept it.[2]
John Petts died in 1991 at the age of 77. In a 1987 interview focusing upon his recollections of the bombing, Petts recollected: "Naturally, as a father, I was horrified by the deaths of those children." Petts then elaborated that the inspiration for the stained-glass image was a verse from theGospel of Matthew: "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."[3] TheWales Window of Alabama bears the inscription, "Given by The People of Wales".[4]
In 2023Vaughan Gething, the first black minister in theWelsh Government, visited Birmingham for the 60th anniversary of the bombing.[5]
In 1970, the designs for the window were donated to theNational Library of Wales inAberystwyth.[6] In 2013, to mark the 50th anniversary of the bombing, Petts's original designs were displayed at the National Library of Wales.[7] 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.[8]