Swing Low Sweet Chariot

There is a predominately black church in Roanoke, Virginia, the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. I has a stained glass window with the image of Stonewall Jackson, hero of the Southern Confederacy.

So how can a man who fought for the slave holding South be honored by blacks?



When Jackson was a professor at VMI he started a Sunday School for black children both free and slave. Obviously he believed that blacks have a soul, but then many southerners believed the same. The southern fear was that if slaves became too educated, they would declare their freedom. Jackson being a good Calvanist ignored that law.



The Rev. Lylburn Dowling arranged for the stained glass to be installed in 1906 in recognition of the man who taught his parents to read, moreover, led them to salvation.

This goes to show that Men aren't one dimensional as they are sometimes portrayed.