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The Legacy of Jonathan Daniels ’61
by Rich Griset, Contributing Writer VMI Alumni Review, 2015-Issue 3
In August 1965, a group of roughly two dozen people, some of them members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, were arrested for picketing whites-only stores in Fort Deposit, Alabama. Jailed in the nearby town of Hayneville, they refused to accept bail unless all members of the group were freed.
After spending six days incarcerated, the group was released suddenly and without transportation back to Fort Deposit.
As someone called for a ride, the August sun beat down on the group. Four of the activists decided to purchase soft drinks at a nearby store they knew served non-whites.
“The pavement was steamy ... We were hot, tired and thirsty,” recalled Ruby Sales, one of the four. “It was hot in a way that it can only be hot in the south.”
The others were Joyce Bailey, Father Richard F. Morrisroe and Jonathan Daniels ’61. Before they could reach the store, they were halted by Tom Coleman, an unpaid special deputy sheriff. A pistol rested on Coleman’s hip, and in his hands was a 12-gauge shotgun.
“He was waving the shotgun and threatening to kill us,” Sales remembered. “[He] threatened to kill me, because I was in the front and in the most danger. Jon pulled me, and I tripped, and he was shot,” she said, recalling the horrifying moment. “...Tom Coleman didn’t stop at that. He fired at Father Morrisroe, who was holding Joyce Bailey’s hand.”
Morrisroe was severely wounded in the back during the altercation, and Daniels was killed instantly. Even with these serious offenses, Coleman was only charged with manslaughter. Richmond Flowers Sr., Alabama’s attorney general, was thwarted by the trial judge and later removed from the case when he tried to have the charge changed to murder. The judge also refused to wait for Morrisroe’s recovery, which would have allowed him to testify in the case.
Coleman claimed self-defense against the four unarmed people he met in the parking lot Aug. 20, 1965. The all-white jury found Coleman not guilty and he was acquitted.
Flowers described the verdict as “democratic process going down the drain of irrationality, bigotry and improper law enforcement.”
Sales barely spoke for several months after Daniels’ murder. “He saved my life,” she said. “He was very committed, but he was not an angel or a saint. What made him so wonderful was that he was an authentic human being with incredible strength ... That’s what makes it so incredible – when ordinary humans step outside and do unordinary and heroic things.”
Daniels is now listed in the Episcopal book of contemporary martyrs for his actions. After Daniels’ death, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “One of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels.”
Despite the traumatic event, Sales continues her work for social justice through her nonprofit, the SpiritHouse Project. The nonprofit has Jonathan Daniels and Samuel Younge fellows, typically college interns, working for it. In a world where law enforcement sometimes targets minorities, Sales says that in some ways, things haven’t changed over the past 50 years. “We lived [then] in a climate in the south that is very similar to what we live in today,” Sales explained.
Daniels’ journey to Alabama came from his sense of duty to others. Born in Keene, New Hampshire, he graduated as valedictorian of VMI’s Class of 1961. Daniels briefly attended Harvard University before deciding to pursue the ministry. In 1963, Daniels began his studies at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Jon was a gentle man,” recalled Rev. David Ames, a seminary classmate of Daniels’ who is now retired from full-time ministry in Rhode Island. “He was studious. He was certainly committed to his understanding of theology and the mission of the church ... He was a very likable guy; a very open and supporting person.”
Though friendly, Ames remembered Daniels as a young man with very firm opinions. “He felt very strongly that Northern liberals should not just go down and march then not do anything,” says Ames. “He was moved very strongly to go back. He took a leave of absence from seminary to go down there and work on voter registration.
“The year before he did that, 1963-64, he was on a fieldwork assignment here in Providence, and he worked out of the cathedral building in Providence on race relations.”
Ames said even against the backdrop of a tumultuous time in America’s history, Daniels’ death had a profound effect on their seminary class.
“[President John F. Kennedy Jr.] had been murdered, Jon was murdered, Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, Bobby Kennedy was murdered,” said Ames. “It was a time of great strife in our culture, and what it said to us as a class – and there were 52 of us in our seminary class – really brought us together in a rather cohesive way and gave us a sense of needing to make a difference.”
Heeding Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call, Daniels headed to Selma, Alabama, to march for equality. Afterward, Daniels and a friend missed their bus back north. At that point, Daniels decided to stay in Alabama and continue his social justice work.
However, it was through his field work in impoverished areas of Providence, Rhode Island, as a seminarian that Daniels saw his first glimpse of social justice ministry. This is where the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island chose to build on Daniels’ legacy, returning to help underserved areas of Providence. The Jonathan Daniels House was created as a place for the diocese to play a role in the type of social justice ministry Daniels took part in during his life. The house is part of the Episcopal Service Corps, a network of over 30 similar programs across the country.
The Episcopal Church once operated several parishes in the capital city’s most impoverished area, South Providence – one of which Daniels worked in – but both eventually closed over the years. The establishment of the Jonathan Daniels House signals a return to the church’s social justice ministry in the city.
“This is very much what Jonathan Daniels did,” said Rev. Linda Grenz, the Rhode Island diocese’s canon to the ordinary. “It’s sort of living and working in the same environs that he did when he was in seminary and working in Cambridge.”
Founded in fall 2014, the Jonathan Daniels House aims to house young men and women who are devoted to social justice issues. The interns are required to spend at least 35 hours per week engaged in advocacy and social service work for underprivileged communities.
In its first year, the house supported two interns, both women in their early 30s.
“We find agencies that are prepared to host interns, offer them basically full-time jobs, then match the intern to the position being offered,” said Grenz. “One [intern] is working in an organization that serves mothers with children who are coming in off the streets and transitioning into housing. She’s preparing them to find housing, to find work, to be oriented.”
The other worked in an urban arts program, pairing teenagers with working artists in mentor relationships. Appointments last for an academic year, running August through June. The diocese hopes to eventually expand the project to support four members.
“It comes out of this desire to honor the church’s work in Providence, as well as honor the work of Jonathan Daniels himself,”
