Aug. 20 marks the anniversary of the 1965 murder of Civil Rights Activist Jonathan Daniels.
Daniels, a 26-year-old Episcopal seminary student, was murdered while saving a 17-year-old African-American girl from a shotgun blast.
Valedictorian of Virginia Military Institute’s Class of 1961, Daniels knew exactly what he was doing when he saw the shotgun leveled at Ruby Sales and pulled her out of the way.
Daniels responded to Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for more ministers to get involved with the growing civil rights movement. Daniels traveled to rural Alabama in support of black Americans demanding the right to vote and to simply live free of violence.
“I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection,” Daniels wrote. “With them, the black men and white men, with all life, in him whose Name is above all names that the races and nations shout…we are indelibly and unspeakably one.”
After killing Daniels, the remorseless murderer emptied the shotgun’s second barrel into the back of Catholic priest Father Richard Morrisroe as he fled with another teenage girl.
An all-white jury acquitted the killer, who said he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot them both again.
Ruby Sales simply wanted the right to buy a cold drink. She and around a dozen others had just been released from the jail where they were illegally held for protesting.
Daniels was one of many murdered martyrs in the country’s ongoing efforts to live up to the self-evident truth that all people are created equal, that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Some Americans kill to deny rights to others. Other Americans die trying to ensure unalienable rights are extended to everyone, not just a select few.
Racism is woven into the fibers of the American fabric. From the first chained, enslaved people delivered to Virginia, to Americans denied the benefits of the GI Bill, to Donald Trump and his father violating federal fair housing laws, to George Floyd murdered on a public street by white men, racism touches ever part of American life.
The racist segregation laws of the United States were the basis of anti-Jewish laws that led to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.
This isn’t ancient history. This is here and now. Victims of America’s racist segregation laws and the Holocaust in Europe are still alive. Today.
Ruby Sales is still fighting for equal treatment today.
History is more than fading black and white snapshots. Tomorrow’s history is today’s headlines.
“I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves” Michelle Obama famously reminded us while she lived in the White House. But then she went on to say:
“And I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent, black young women playing with their dogs on the White House lawn. And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters and all our sons and daughters now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States. So, look, so don’t let anyone ever tell you that this country isn’t great, that somehow, we need to make it great again. Because this right now is the greatest country on earth.”
We’ve come a long way. But the U.S. owes it to Jonathan Daniels, Ruby Sales, and the millions of Americans still struggling for equality to continue to demand equality for all.
Follow these links for other Civil Rights posts:
The Civil Rights Struggle Continues, so Others May be Free
The Clark Doll Study Documenting the Damage of Segregation
Martin Luther King. Jr. and the Original Black Lives Matter Movement
Ω
Pastor Jim Meisner, Jr. earned his M.Div. from the oldest HBCU seminary in the United States. He’s the author of the novel Faith, Hope, and Baseball, available on Amazon, or follow this link to order an autographed copy. He created and manages the Facebook page Faith on the Fringe.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In