Crowd remembers 'Martyr of Hayneville'

Alvin Benn | Special to the Advertiser

HAYNEVILLE – A capacity crowd spent part of the weekend remembering a violent death more than 50 years ago, one in which a civil rights activist lost his life as he tried to save a teenage girl who was standing next to him.

Killed was the Rev. Jonathan Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian who died as he tried to buy soft drinks for picketers on a hot day in August 1965.

The killer was Tom Coleman, a special deputy sheriff who claimed he had been threatened by Daniels, 26, just outside Varner’s Cash Store. Coleman would say later that he had acted in “self-defense.”

Coleman was indicted and tried on a manslaughter charge and quickly acquitted by a jury of 12 white female members not far from where the shooting occurred.

Civil rights activists were outraged but not surprised by the acquittal. Many felt Coleman should have, at least, been tried for murder.

Daniels became a civil rights martyr, and his name would be recognized each August when the incident was in the headlines once more.

Many have honored his memory in the years since his death, and one of the largest has been held in Lowndes County, where Daniels was ripped apart by a shotgun blast.

The annual event is described as “A Pilgrimage and Procession for the Feast of Jonathan Myrick Daniels.” He is named a “Martyr of Hayneville” as well as one of “The Martyrs of Alabama.”

The highlight of every program is held at the Lowndes County Courthouse. where this year’s keynote speaker was the Rev. Ed Bacon, a retired rector of All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif — a 4,000-member multi-ethnic urban Episcopal parish.

Bacon had the packed courtroom crowd hanging on each word and he extended his remarks beyond what had happened 50 years ago. His comments were much more recent, but still focusing on race relations in America.

“Ideology in this country is that white straight men are those of greatest worth in this country and anybody else fits into another social location of inferiority,” he said, as he stood at the pulpit.

Bacon also spoke about borders, immigration issues and other topics that crop up in headlines every day.

He said 500 children remain separated from their parents “and, in some cases may never be reunited with them.”

Bacon said Daniels insisted on living “with black people” in Selma when he spent his summers there because “they had become my people.”

The largest turnout in the annual salutes honoring his civil rights efforts occurred in 2015 on the 50th anniversary of his violent death.

Daniels, born in 1939 in Keene, New Hampshire, had dedicated his life to helping those who needed it the most, especially in the Deep South where he would spend his last days.

He was part of a group of civil rights activists who were responding to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s appeal for help after “Bloody Sunday” in Selma.

The group’s demonstrations didn’t win its members any friends and, if anything, might have led to Daniels’ death. A Catholic priest who helped Daniels nearly died when he was also shot outside the same time that his friend died.

While he was incarcerated in Fort Deposit not far from Hayneville, Daniels wrote a letter on Aug. 17, 1965, and sent to his mother, opening with “Dearest Mum.”

Daniels began his letter by describing the contents as an “eminently peculiar” birthday card since “I have been in jail ever since Saturday.”

The reason was his arrest for picketing in Fort Deposit. It was a time when civil rights advocates in the South were jailed for what Daniels described as a “constitutional right.”

Daniels said in his letter that a “gun-toting Cracker” responded with “You don’t have any rights in Fort Deposit.”

At the time, Daniels and a group of other activists were in jail, where they were subjected to “vile food,” unsanitary conditions and an apparent reluctance by local authorities to allow them to post bond for release.

He wrote his mother that he and his friends were seeking an injunction in an effort to have their case transferred to federal court.

Daniels told his mother in the letter that his birthday card and gift to her would have to wait “but I sure will be thinking of you with love and prayers.”

Prayers have been said for Daniels since his death, and Hayneville has been one of many houses of worship that recognize his civil rights efforts.

Patriotism, community service and civil rights would help guide Daniels’ life, and a commemoration of his activities was included in “Events in the History of a Hero.”

Phillip and Connie Daniels raised their son in the early 1940s, and Daniel’s dad served with distinction in World War II and was decorated after receiving wounds in combat.

Dr. Daniels returned home to Keene, N.H., where he founded a medical clinic while Jonathan his son was injured in 1955 when he fell from a roof and suffered serious injuries and spent more than a month in a hospital.

In the late 1950s, Jonathan became a student at Virginia Military Institute and was elected class valedictorian.

As the 1960s dawned, Jonathan became a “card-carrying member” of the NAACP and did field work in impoverished areas of New Hampshire, leading him to journey to Alabama, where the voting rights movement was in high gear.

Daniels’ efforts in Alabama in 1965 led to his death in August when Coleman shot him outside the “Cash Store.” About 150 visitors walked to the location of what once was the store. It has since been torn despite repeated efforts by historians to preserve it.

Catholic priest Richard Morrisroe was also shot by Coleman. He survived but has been in considerable pain since that time. He occasionally travels to Hayneville to participate in the annual commemoration of what happened in 1965.

In the years after Daniels’ death, churches and military institutions around the country have honored him. Former President Jimmy Carter received VMI’s Jonathan Daniels humanitarian Award.

During the 50th anniversary of Daniels’ death in 2015, he was honored along with several “Martyrs of Alabama.” It was sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama as well as the Lowndes County Commission and Town of Hayneville.