"Stained-glass depiction of dark-skinned Jesus sparks race debate"

A stained-glass window depicting Jesus Christ as a person of color is prompting scrutiny into the role of race, slavery, and gender in 19th-century New England. The window, which adorns St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Warren, Rhode Island, shows Jesus with dark skin while he speaks to a dark-skinned Samaritan woman at a well. The window was installed in 1878 while the U.S. was still reeling from the aftermath of the Civil War and the ensuing work of Reconstruction, which ended a year before. Scholars are reportedly studying the potential intentions of the artist and Mary P. Carr, the woman who commissioned the window in memory of her aunts who married into families involved with the slave trade.