The legacy of civil rights martyr Jonathan Daniels

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Sixty years ago, 26-year-old white seminarian Jonathan Daniels answered the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for clergy from around the country to help complete the historic voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery. After the march was completed, Daniels stayed in Alabama and took up civil rights work. It was a decision that would lead to his death.

August 20, 2025, marks the 60th anniversary of Daniels’ killing at the hands of an Alabama county official. Today, the Episcopal Church venerates Daniels as a saint and martyr. For the anniversary, Episcopalians from around the country gathered for an annual pilgrimage to the site of his death in Hayneville. 

A trip to the corner store 

During the summer of 1965, he and a group of demonstrators were arrested after picketing outside of a whites-only store in Fort Deposit and were detained in nearby Hayneville in Lowndes County. 

The group was released on August 20 and made their way to a corner store to buy some drinks and discuss their next steps. When Black teenager and fellow activist, Ruby Sales opened the door, she was greeted with curses and a shotgun pointed at her by deputy sheriff Tom Coleman. Daniels pushed her out of the way when Coleman fired. Daniels was killed, allowing the group to disperse and escape. 

A pilgrimage in Daniels’ memory

Today, Hayneville is a small town, with a little over 800 people according to the 2020 census. 

On August 9, it’s quiet except for pilgrims making their way across the bustling courthouse square in Hayneville. Among the travelers, youth from Oklahoma and New York were in attendance with their respective youth ministries. The teenagers solemnly carried posters featuring the faces of Alabama’s civil rights martyrs during the morning’s march from the courthouse to the jail cell where Daniels was detained and ultimately to the corner store where Daniels was fatally shot. 

Judge Adrian Johnson presides over the same court where an all-white jury acquitted Coleman, the man who killed Daniels. Judge Johnson is aware of the history of his bench and attends the pilgrimage every year. 

“This is an event that I think highlights the injustice of the past,” Judge Johnson said. “We have to constantly seek justice to ensure that protection of all people’s rights.”

Alabama’s Episcopal Bishop Glenda S. Curry said youth should understand  there’s a difference between love that’s just fun and love that sacrifices.

“Love that sacrifices gives up something beyond itself and I really hope they take away that that’s really what life’s about,” Curry said.

After the march, the pilgrims held a service in the courthouse. Former presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Michael Curry gave a passionate sermon, emphasizing the necessity of keeping faith through struggle. During the service, civil rights martyrs were individually honored.

Manuela Parada, a teenaged-participant from Shawnee, Oklahoma, held the poster of Denise McNair, one of the victims of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963.

“It felt empowering. I wanted people to look at her face. I wanted them to know her name,” Parada said.

Another participant from the same youth group, Emilia Bronson, shared how she felt through the weekend’s events.

“Anger, sadness, definitely a little bit of guilt of like in my day-to-day life,”  Bronson said.

She added she felt she could always do more to stick up for other people, 

Bronson didn’t grow up in the Episcopal Church, but was drawn to it a little over a year ago because of their welcoming position towards the LGBTQ+ community. Through her youth group and the pilgrimage, Bronson has been engaging with theology and justice.

“Jesus, he fought for a lot of people. He fought for prostitutes, the poor people, the people with disabilities. He really worked with them,” she said. ”He didn’t care about what was legal or illegal, because that’s not always right. And he just always fought for people that were beaten down and oppressed. And that’s what Christianity should be fighting for today,” 

Teaching Daniels’ legacy

Being of service is a serious focus of Episcopal theology education. The Very Rev. Lydia Bucklin shared Episcopal Divinity School’s goals of being accessible and useful. They’ve even provided training on what clergy can do to protect their communities if faced with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Bucklin sees great value in teaching and looking to history as a source of inspiration and accountability, particularly about racial justice in the United States.

“I’m curious about the role of the church and feel compelled as a leader in the church to continue telling these stories and to tell the truth about the government’s role in it and the church’s role it, so that we don’t go backwards any further and we really move towards God’s dream for us which is one where we all thrive and survive in our diversity, not by letting go of any parts of who we are, but truly being free in who we and living together, celebrating who we are,” Bucklin said. 

Iwao Asakura, a third-year student at the Seminary of the Southwest attended  the weekend, and carried a large gold leaf portrait of Daniels in his saintly form throughout the march. 

“In an odd way, I feel kind of associated with him,” Asakura said in reference to his relationship with Daniels’ story and legacy. 

He sees echoes of himself in the seminarian’s story, particularly about being outsiders who embraced  a new culture in order to serve — Daniels from the North, and Asakura from Japan.

Asakura, in his fifties, is new to his spiritual vocation and feels that he is answering God’s call for him to serve marginalized people. 

Just like Jonathan Daniels, sixty years ago.