The true crime books of J.R. StranahanAlabama edition
True Crime America

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama / Memorial

The window Wales gave Birmingham after the bombing

Small donations in Wales helped create a stained-glass window for Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. John Petts's surviving designs trace the making of that gift.

By True Crime America2 minute readReview edition · September 2026

The window Wales gave Birmingham began with an appeal for small donations. After the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Welsh artist John Petts worked with the Western Mail newspaper to fund a replacement window. Each person's contribution was capped, giving many donors a share in the gift.

Black and white photograph of streetcars, pedestrians, shopfronts and overhead wires along Second Avenue in Birmingham, Alabama.
Second Avenue looking east in Birmingham, in a Detroit Publishing Company photograph copyrighted in 1906. Historical Birmingham context, decades before the 1963 bombing; this photograph does not show Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection, LC-DIG-det-4a13390. ↗

The September 15, 1963, bombing killed Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. All four were children. The criminal cases took decades: Robert Chambliss, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry were eventually convicted in separate proceedings.

Petts's design depicts a Black Christ with outstretched arms and a rainbow above. The National Park Service describes one hand as resisting oppression and the other as open in forgiveness. The finished window was shown in Cardiff before its journey to Birmingham, where the dedication service took place on June 6, 1965.

The artist's work survives on paper as well as in glass. The National Library of Wales holds preliminary studies and the final design, alongside material about the window's creation and dedication. The drawings offer a way to follow the decisions behind the finished work.

At the church, the window stands alongside exhibits about the congregation and the girls who were killed. It also preserves a connection across the Atlantic: an artist's labor and many small contributions, gathered into a gift for a damaged church.

True Crime Alabama: The Birmingham Files, book cover

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The Birmingham Files covers the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and its prosecution alongside the Hawes murders, Anthony Ray Hinton and other local cases. Explore the investigations behind this city's wider history.

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Sources & further reading

  1. National Library of Wales — The Wales Window in Birmingham, Alabama ↗
  2. National Park Service — Sixteenth Street Baptist Church ↗
  3. FBI — Civil Rights at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, 2024 address and case chronology ↗

This original companion article offers a separate, focused look at the public record. Historical images are identified as contextual where appropriate.

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