New York youth embark on Jonathan Daniels pilgrimage, visit historic Civil Rights’ sites

[Episcopal News Service – Hayneville, Alabama] Angel Williams, a 15-year-old from New York City, thought she already knew a lot about the Civil Rights Movement from her high school U.S. history class. But when Williams joined 13 other teenagers from the Diocese of New York for its 10th annual Blest Jonathan Daniels Youth Civil Rights pilgrimage, she realized she still has much to learn. 

“Visiting the Civil Rights’ places that we did was very powerful,” Williams told Episcopal News Service. “For instance, we learned in books that lynching happened back then, but then the museums we went to showed us actual photos of Black men getting lynched, and it was very, very, very disturbing for me.”

The three-day pilgrimage began on Aug. 8 in Atlanta, Georgia, where the young pilgrims visited Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park, his childhood home and his burial site. Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King was co-pastor from 1960 until his assassination in 1968, is also located in what is a national park.

The young pilgrims concluded their first day by watching and discussing “Mighty Times: The Children’s March,” the Academy Award-winning short documentary about the young activists involved in the 1963 Children’s Crusade for civil rights in Birmingham. 

“I didn’t know that thousands of kids marched and fought for freedom during the Civil Rights Movement. I didn’t know any of that,” Brianny Martinez, a 15-year-old parishioner at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in the Bronx, told ENS. “That information was new to me, but it also made me feel kind of special because I’m also a kid and I also have the power to do the same thing those kids did.”

On Aug. 9, the pilgrims traveled to Alabama to visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and 16th Street Baptist Church before traveling to The Legacy Museum in Montgomery.

Samuel Bourne, a 16-year-old parishioner at Church of the Holy Innocents in Highland Falls, New York, told ENS that he was “genuinely shocked” to see a real Ku Klux Klan uniform on display at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

“You think something like that is just a movie prop because you only see it in textbooks and in movies anymore, but then actually seeing one in person with just a glass window standing in front of it, you remember that this time in history isn’t Hollywood,” Bourne said. “An actual racist person wore that uniform to terrorize other people. It was genuinely shocking to see.”

Martinez, who is Latina, also said she “didn’t expect” to see at The Legacy Museum a wall full of signs that excluded services from not just Black people, but also Jewish people, Latinos and other people of color. Even though Martinez already knew that most racist laws generally applied to all people of color, she said it’s rarely mentioned in discourse about the Civil Rights Movement, if at all.

“This is why if another Latino says to me that racism is just a Black and white issue, I would say, ‘excuse you, but no,’” Martinez said. “This is everybody’s issue, not just Black people’s issue. Racism hurts us all, but the problem is we don’t talk about it enough in that sense other than just Black versus white.”

Martinez, Bourne and Williams all said that they never knew about the 1963 bombing at 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four Black girls until they visited the Birmingham church in person on Aug. 9.

“No, they didn’t teach us that in school,” Williams said.

Carla Burns is the former chair of the Diocese of New York’s anti-racism committee and coordinator of the diocesan youth pilgrimage. She also was a teacher and a librarian for 45 years. She told ENS that offering opportunities for youth to visit historic sites is more important now than ever as some lawmakers push to pass legislation to censor school curricula that teach concepts of social justice, systemic racism and, what have become, other politically divisive topics.

“Much of this history isn’t being taught, or it’s being taught in a way that’s untrue, like the claim that slavery was a ‘vocational experience’ for African people. It’s just ludicrous,” said Burns, whose ancestors were enslaved by Dutch settlers in New York. “New York is supposed to be progressive, but I know the New York state curriculum. These kids are not learning the history that they learn when they come on this pilgrimage. They’re always astounded.”

Burns also mentioned that the youth pilgrims are always surprised to learn that New York City in the 18th century had the second-highest number of enslaved people, behind Charleston, South Carolina.

The pilgrimage concluded on Aug. 10 in Hayneville, Alabama, near Montgomery and Selma, where the teenagers joined hundreds of other pilgrims for the Diocese of Alabama’s 27th annual Jonathan Daniels pilgrimage. The churchwide pilgrimage is named after Episcopal martyr Jonathan Daniels, who was killed Aug. 20, 1965. Daniels, a white 26-year-old seminarian originally from Keene, New Hampshire, and three other civil rights activists – two Black female activists and a white Catholic priest – had just been released from jail after picketing white-only businesses and were heading to Varner’s Cash Store to purchase some beverages when Tom Coleman, a white, part-time deputy sheriff, confronted them. Daniels shielded 17-year-old Ruby Sales from Coleman’s shotgun blast, taking the fatal wound himself.

“This pilgrimage isn’t just a show to remember Jonathan Daniels. It’s to remember the work that he did and to continue it,” Burns said. “He was a young person who did this work, and young people in The Episcopal Church will continue doing the anti-racist work that Jonathan Daniels engaged in and lost his life to.”

Daniels’ feast day in The Episcopal Church is Aug. 14, the day he and the other activists were arrested for protesting, six days before his assassination.

Since the Diocese of Alabama launched the first Jonathan Daniels pilgrimage in 1998, hundreds of Episcopalians – including clergy, seminarians and lay people – and civil rights activists gather on or around Daniels’ feast day annually. Like previous years, this year’s pilgrimage began at the Lowndes County Courthouse square before the pilgrims marched to the old county jail where Daniels was detained. The procession continued to the site of the old Varner’s Cash Store – now an insurance agency office – and ended back at the courthouse, where an all-white jury tried and acquitted the man who shot Daniels. The pilgrims sang, prayed and reflected throughout the march.

Some of the youth pilgrims from the dioceses of New York and Alabama marched while holding up signs profiling Daniels or one of the 14 other known martyrs who were killed in Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement. They later shared information about each martyr at a special worship service inside the courthouse. Alabama Bishop Glenda Curry was the celebrant. Mississippi Bishop Dorothy Sanders Wells, a Black Alabama native, preached.

“I describe myself often as the person who came of age post-Civil Rights Act of 1964, post-Brown v. Board of Education, after folks like Jonathan Daniels had come along and sacrificed for me,” said Wells, who in July became the first person of color and first woman to serve as Mississippi’s bishop. “It’s not lost on me how many people sacrificed so much, gave their lives … that I would always know a world that was a different place than the folks who came before me. It’s not lost on me the sacrifices of so many human beings who have made it possible for me to be sitting and having this conversation with you today.”

Watch a video recording of the worship service here:

JDP Martyrs Pilgrimage 2024 from Episcopal Church in Alabama on Vimeo.

The Diocese of Alabama will observe the 60th anniversary of Daniels’ assassination in 2025.

Before the churchwide pilgrimage began, the youth pilgrims met Richard Morrisroe, the former Catholic priest who was with Daniels the moment he was killed. Morrisroe was also shot – in the back – and spent years relearning how to walk and coping with post-traumatic stress disorder. Morrisroe shared his story and answered any questions the pilgrims had for him.

Burns said she hopes the youth pilgrimage will someday morph into a churchwide conference that encourages young Episcopalians to maintain Daniels’ legacy through action and not just by remembrance. That’s why, she said, the pilgrims from the Diocese of New York traditionally wear shirts that list the names of the Alabama martyrs and say, “Honor Our Martyrs. Register and vote,” at the wider gathering in Hayneville.

Martinez, Bourne and Williams all said they recommend the Blest Jonathan Daniels Youth Civil Rights pilgrimage for teenagers who live in the Diocese of New York.

“You get to not only make new friends and share a unique opportunity, but also learn more than you can imagine,” Bourne said. “This pilgrimage is a life-changing experience.”

— Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.