Two Confederate flags will be removed from two separate stained-glass windows at Washington National Cathedral, Cathedral representatives said Wednesday.
The flags will be replaced with panes of plain glass on windows honoring Confederate Generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. The removal of the flags is intended to start a discussion on racism and the legacy of slavery, "and instead of turning away from that question, the Cathedral has decided to lean into it," the Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, a member of the task force that last week recommended removal of the flags said.
The task force will address what to do with the windows in the next two years.
The public display of the flag used by Confederate forces during the U.S. Civil War has been subject to heated debates since the June massacre of nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Police said the attack was racially motivated. The white man charged in the slayings had posed with a Confederate battle flag in photos posted online before the massacre.
