Fifty years ago today, on August 20, 1965, the twenty-six year old Episcopalian seminarian Jonathan Daniels was killed in Hayneville, Alabama.
He had come to the south to support the civil rights movement. He, a Catholic priest, and two black civil rights workers hade been imprisoned and were waiting for a ride. They went to buy a soft drink but were confronted by a man with a shotgun and pistol. Jonathan Daniels died protecting one of the women who was threatened by the man with a shotgun aimed at her. Daniels pushed the man down and took the brunt of the blast.
He was among those who gave up the comforts of life and study to participate in the struggle of the poor.
What I find refreshing is this quote which shows not only the faith that was the source of his commitment but also a spirit that was seeking to be free of self-righteousness, one of the temptations of those who struggle for justice and human rights.
“I lost fear. . . when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God. I began to lose self-righteousness when I discovered the extent to which my behavior was motivated by worldly desires and by the self-seeking messianism of Yankee deliverance! The point is simply, of course, that one’s motives are usually mixed, and one had better know it.”
This is a lesson for all of us.
walk the way 