The Wales Window at St Mary's, Brecon

When the light shines through the east window at St Mary's, Brecon, it does more than colour the stone with reds and blues. It carries a story that stretches across the Atlantic, linking a parish church in mid-Wales with a Baptist congregation in Birmingham, Alabama, and with four young girls killed in an act of racist violence.

The bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church

On 15 September 1963, a bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The device was timed to go off on a Sunday morning. Four African-American girls – Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, aged between 11 and 14 – were killed as they prepared for worship in the church basement, and more than 20 others were injured. The attack shocked the world and became a turning point in the American civil rights movement.

News of the bombing travelled quickly. Among those who read about it was the Welsh stained-glass artist John Petts, living and working in Carmarthenshire. Horrified "as a father and as a craftsman", he asked what the people of Wales could do in response.

The Wales Window for Alabama

Petts approached the Western Mail newspaper with a simple idea: a national appeal in Wales to fund a new stained-glass window for the bombed church. The appeal was deliberately limited to small gifts so that the window would truly be a gift "from the people of Wales", not from any one wealthy donor. Children sent pocket money; chapels and churches collected offerings; coins were handed over in pubs and post offices.

The window Petts designed – now known as the Wales Window for Alabama – was installed at 16th Street Baptist Church in 1965. Beneath, an inscription reads that the window is given by the people of Wales. Today it is one of the most powerful visual memorials of the civil rights struggle, and a continuing sign of solidarity between Wales and the congregation in Birmingham.

A sister window in Brecon

St Mary's, Brecon, shares in this story through its own east window, which was created as a "sister" to the Wales Window for Alabama. Like the original in Birmingham, it was given as a sign of friendship and shared faith, linking communities separated by geography but united in prayer and in the hope of justice.

While the designs of the two windows are not identical, visitors who know the Wales Window will recognise familiar themes in Brecon: light falling on a figure of Christ, the cross held together with the suffering of the innocent and the ongoing work of reconciliation.

Remembering, lamenting, and hoping

Standing before the window at St Mary's, we are invited to:

• Remember the four girls killed in the bombing, and all victims of racist violence.
• Lament the sin of racism, wherever it is found – in history, in our institutions, and in our own lives.
• Pray for communities still marked by injustice, and for those who work for civil rights and racial reconciliation today.
• Commit ourselves afresh to the gospel call to see Christ in one another, especially in those who are most vulnerable or marginalised.