Featured Windows, February 2001

Historic Little Rock Missionary Baptist Church Window

Building: Historic Little Rock Baptist Church (formerly Central Woodward Christian Church)

City: Detroit

State: Michigan


Windows featuring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

These 18-foot high windows were the first stained glass windows to be installed in Historic Little Rock Missionary Baptist Church.

The Washington Window shows our first president in civilian dress, wearing a sword and holding a book in his left hand. An inscription reads, "George Washington 1732-1799/Victory/Peace."

The Lincoln Window depicts our sixteenth president holding the "Emancipation Proclamation" as he points to the kneeling slave child. Inscribed below their figures are the words, "Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865/Justice/Mercy."

In each window, the central figure of the president is flanked by two angels in the side panels.

Designed by Detroit architect George D. Mason, the building was erected in 1928 as the Central Woodward Christian Church. The Lincoln and Washington windows were designed by Michigan artist A. Kay Herbert and installed in 1929 and 1932, respectively. In 1978 the church became the home of the present African-American congregation, which added many more stained glass windows in 1989 and 1990. To view more recent windows in this church, visit the Window of the Month for February 1998 and the Window of the Month for February 2000.

Historic Little Rock Missionary Baptist Church of Detroit was registered in the Michigan Stained Glass Census by Silvio Guglielmo Benvenuti of Oak Park.

(MSGC 1993.0113)

Text by Betty MacDowell, Michigan Stained Glass Census, February , 2001.