A church's stained glass window of slave trader Edward Colston is to be replaced with one featuring Jesus ‘in multiple ethnicities’ and refugees in a boat. St Mary Redcliff church in Bristol removed four stained-glass panels dedicated to Colston two years ago following the toppling of his statue.
The window was temporarily replaced with plain panels and the church invited the public to submit new designs in a competition. Last year a local junior doctor in Bristol Ealish Swift won the contest with a series of images showing a ‘non-white’ Jesus in a variety of situations.
Permission for the windows to be replaced has now been granted by the Church of England’s court in Bristol. New versions of Dr Swift's winning designs have been revealed and will now be made and installed at the historic church.
They show a 'non-white' Jesus in a boat with refugees and with the Bristol Bus Boycott campaigners. The Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 arose from the refusal of the Bristol Omnibus Company to employ black or Asian bus crews in the city.
There was widespread racial discrimination in housing and employment at that time against people of colour.
A spokesperson for St Mary Redcliffe Church said the new designs referred to Bristol’s ''rich multicultural past and present''.
