Jonathan Myrick Daniels was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1939.  He was murdered by an unemployed highway worker in Haynesville, Alabama on August 14, 1965, while working in the civil rights movement, and is considered in the Episcopal Church to be a martyr to the faith.

Like many young people, Jonathan Daniels wrestled with the meaning of his life and with his own sense of vocation.  The son of a doctor, he considered medicine, as well as law.  He was graduated from Virginia Military Institute, but decided against a military career, entering graduate school at Harvard to study English Literature.  He had a profound conversion experience on Easter Day, 1962, at Church of the Advent in Boston.  Soon after, he entered the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, preparing for ordination to the priesthood.

In 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. issued an appeal for volunteers to come to Selma to help secure voting rights for all citizens.  Daniels asked for leave from school so that he could go to Selma, sponsored by the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity.  Hearing the Magnificat sung at an Evening Prayer Service, Daniels wrote in a letter that Mary's words about the mighty being pulled down from their seat and the meek and humble being exalted, and about the hungry being filled with good things, deepened his conviction that he had to go to Selma.

Jonathan and several companions were jailed for joining a picket line protesting whites only stores.  After several days in jail, Daniels and his friends were suddenly released and left without transportation.  While waiting for a bus, Jonathan Daniels and three co-workers, one a white Roman Catholic priest, the other two young African American women, both teenagers, walked to a nearby store, one of the few in the area that served non-whites.  They were met at the door by an out of work highway engineer, who had been named a special deputy.  He was armed with a 12 gauge shotgun, and he leveled it at 16-year-old Ruby Sales.  Jonathan Daniels grabbed her, threw her to the ground, and covered her body with his own.  He took the full blast of the gun and died instantly.  (The priest grabbed the other young woman and ran with her; he was shot in the back but survived.)  The shooter was arrested, tried, and acquitted by an all-white jury, prompting Alabama's attorney general to denounce the jury.

Work is ongoing this summer, thanks to all the folks who gave so generously to our capital campaign.  Thank you!

Our hope is that we will be able to clean out our church school classrooms and air them out with repaired or replaced windows.  The classrooms will get new furniture and fresh paint as well.  We will also be replacing the very old tables and chairs downstairs in our parish hall.  In addition, the roof project is nearly finished.  Our hope is that any moisture will dry out, and we will be able to repair the water damage and paint in the sanctuary in time for Christmas.  The folks doing our sidewalk and masonry project are scheduled to begin work next week.  Once this first phase is completed, we will most likely need to wait for some period as contributions come in, and also so we do as much as we can not to disrupt our program year and the groups that use our space. 

Please remember, if you have made a pledge to the capital campaign, the first year's pledge is due September 15.  Thank you so much to all the people who have been able to make pledges early and that have enabled our work to proceed this summer.

Rev. Jack Bishop, Christine Camper, Betty Fraser, Bernice Herrick, Tony Lopes, Lynn McDonald, Rheta McKinley, Elsie Saunders, Eleanor Schott, Bishop Thomas Shaw, Kevin Smith, Ralph Ventola, and Stephen Wagner.