Jonathan Myrick Daniels was born in Keene, New Hampshire, in 1939. Like many young adults, from high school in Keene to graduate school at Harvard, Jonathan wrestled with vocation. Attracted to medicine, ordained ministry, law, and writing, he found himself close to a loss of faith until his discernment was clarified by a profound conversion on Easter Day 1962 at the Church of the Advent in 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 touched Jonathan’s passions for the well-being of others, the Christian witness of the church, and political justice. His conviction was deepened at Evening Prayer during the singing of the Magnificat: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.” He wrote: “I knew that I must go to Selma. The Virgin’s song was to grow more and more dear to me in the weeks ahead.”

In Selma, he found himself in the midst of a time and place where the nation’s racism and the Episcopal Church’s share in that inheritance were exposed. Greatly moved by what he saw and experienced, he returned to seminary, asked leave to work in Selma while continuing his studies, and returned there under the sponsorship of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity.

After a brief return to Cambridge in May to complete his exams, he returned to Alabama to resume his efforts assisting those engaged in the integration struggle. Jailed on August 14 for joining a picket line, Jonathan and his companions resolved to remain together until bail could be posted for all of them, as it was six days later. Released and aware that they were in danger, four of them walked to a small store. As sixteen-year-old Ruby Sales reached the top step of the entrance, a man with a shotgun appeared, cursing her. Jonathan pulled her to one side to shield her from the unexpected threats and was killed instantly by the 12-gauge blast.

Jonathan’s letters and papers bear eloquent witness to the profound effect that Selma had upon him. He writes, “The doctrine of the creeds, the enacted faith of the sacraments, were the essential preconditions of the experience itself. The faith with which I went to Selma has not changed: it has grown ... I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection ... with them, the black men and white men, with all life, in him whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout ... We are indelibly and unspeakably one.”

Excerpted directly from “Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2022,” p. 360-361.