Moral principles drive faith leaders to speak out against Trump on immigration, foreign policy
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How did Jonathan Daniels’ martyrdom connect to clergy speaking out today?
S-Market.
Really happy to have you here. So he grew up in New Hampshire. He was born and raised in Keene, New Hampshire. He then left New Hampshire to go to military school. He went to VMI, to the Virginia Military Institute. He was actually valedictorian of his class at VMI. He then went on to Harvard. He was going to be an English literature major at Harvard, but he soon changed his mind. He felt a calling. He was called to the priesthood. And so he left Harvard. He enrolled in the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And it is while he was enrolled at seminary, he was still a seminarian, that he got permission from the seminary to complete some of his classwork remotely. Not in Massachusetts, but in Alabama.
It was 1965, the roiling summer of 1965. And he went to Lowndes County, Alabama, right in the Alabama black belt. He went there to serve the poor. He tutored kids. He tried to get people hooked up with programs that could help them financially. He helped integrate a whites-only Episcopal church in Lowndes County, Alabama. He registered people to vote there. Specifically, he registered African-Americans to vote in Lowndes County. His name was Jonathan Daniels. And in 1965, he was 26 years old, 26-year-old Episcopal seminarian. On August 14th, 1965, Jonathan Daniels, this young man, the seminarian, he put on his clerical collar, And he took part in a peaceful picket of segregated whites-only businesses in a town called Fort Deposit, Alabama in Lowndes County.
They wanted those businesses to serve everyone regardless of race. They protested for it. Local police in Lowndes County arrested every single person taking part in that picket, and they put them all in a garbage truck. And they drove them in the garbage truck to the Lowndes County Jail in Hainville, Alabama. And all of the people, about 30 people who participated in that protest, they were all held in the Lowndes County Jail in Hainville for six days. And on August 20th, at the end of those six days, in the stinking heat of that hot, hot August, The protesters were let out, and they were just dumped outside. No transportation to anywhere, no warning, they were just dumped out in the street. And then picture this, this young seminarian.
Again, he's wearing his clerical collar, which he has now been wearing for six days in jail. He's 26 years old. And he's with another priest, another white priest, a Catholic priest, who's about the same age as him. He's newly ordained as a Catholic priest. He's 27. And these two priests, age 26, 27, both white men, both dressed for work as priests, both dressed in their clerical collars. They get out of jail after six days spent in there. And when they get out, while they and their fellow protesters are trying to figure out how are they gonna get a ride? How are they gonna get back to where they live? How are they gonna let people know that they're out? These two priests and two young women who had also taken part in the protest, who had also been locked up, they decided they would cross the street from the jail and go get a Coke, go to a local store and get something to drink.
It's a really hot day in August. It's these two priests, these two young white men, and two young black women. again, who had also been part of the protest. And one of the young women, her name is Joyce Bailey, she's 19 years old. The other young woman, Ruby Sales, is just 17. But the four of them, the two priests and these two teenage girls, they walk over to the store to go get a soda. And Jonathan Daniels, the Episcopal seminarian, he borrows a dime from 17-year-old Ruby Sales so he can buy a soda. And the four of them walk up to that store And as they get up to the door of that store, a white man with a shotgun swears at them and tells them to get off this property or I'll blow your bleeping heads off.
And that man standing at the door of the store, he levels the shotgun and he aims at 17-year-old Ruby Sales. And this Episcopal seminarian, Jonathan Daniels, he sees that the man is actually going to fire the shotgun.
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