Jonathan Myrick Daniels
Martyr of Hayneville, Alabama
August 20, 1965
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1939. He was shot and killed by an unemployed highway worker who had been "deputized" in Hayneville, Alabama on August 20, 1965.
From high school in Keene to graduate school in Harvard, Jonathan wrested with the meaning of life and death and vocation. Attracted to medicine, the ordained ministry, law, and writing, he found himself close to a loss of faith when his search was resolved by a profound conversion experience Easter Day, 1962, in the Church of the Advent, Boston. Jonathan then entered the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In March 1965, the televised appeal of Martin Luther King, Jr. to come to Selma to secure for all citizens the right to vote placed Jonathan where the nation's racism and the Episcopal Church's share in the inheritance was exposed.
He returned to seminary but asked for a leave of absence to work in Selma where he would be sponsored by the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity. The conviction of his calling was deepened at Evening Prayer during the singing of the Magnificat. "He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things...". :"I know that I must go to Selma. The Virgin's song was to grow more and more dear to me in the weeks to come."
Jonathan was arrested in Fort Deposit on August 14th, for joining a picket line and trasnsferred to the jail in Hayneville. On August 20th, he and his companions were unexpectedly released. Sensing that they were in danger and thirsty from the scorching August heat, four of them walked to Cash's small store nearby.
At sixteen years old Ruby Sales reached the top step of the entrance, a man with a gun appeared, cursing her. Jonathan pulled her in front of him and turned around to shield her from the unexpected threats. As a result he was killed by a blast from a 12-gauge shotgun.
In the days after Daniels' death, the seminarian was honored at several memorial services and meetings. The Reverend Malcom Boyd spoke at a requiem mass in Washington's Church of the Atonement summing up Jonathan's life by saying "Jonathan Daniels was the most alive young man in the Church I have met... He was one person who was not afraid of getting involved."
The final service was held at his home church of Saint James in Keene. At the conclussion of the graveside service as people drifted away, a small group of whites and blacks gathered around the grave, joined hands, and softly sang "We Shall Overcome".
