Of Sacred Space

By Valerie Mitchell, Co-Chair, Commission on Racial Justice and Reconciliation

This year’s Jonathan Daniels and the Martyrs of Alabama Pilgrimage will take place in Hayneville, Alabama, on Saturday, August 15. The Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast, through its Commission on Racial Justice and Reconciliation and others, will be representing. Everyone is invited to join us there. You can contact Commission Co-Chairs Joe McDaniel (mcdanieljoe43@yahoo.com, (415) 225-9066 or Valerie Mitchell (valerie.mitchell@gmail.com, (251) 533-6000 to carpool to Hayneville, or drive yourself and meet us there.

When I was in college, I spent a semester in Oxford, England. One of the “field trips” we took was to visit Coventry Cathedral. Coventry is an industrial city in the English Midlands that was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe during World War II. The ancient cathedral was virtually destroyed, leaving only its outer shell, with most of the interior open to the sky. Following the war, a new cathedral was built adjacent to the old one, joined by a glass screen that allows a view from the old cathedral into the new one – and vice versa. The new cathedral (it was opened in 1962; I was there in 1974, so it was really new then!) is a masterpiece of twentieth-century architecture and art, made even more striking by its juxtaposition with the destruction brought about by war. Various parts of the new cathedral were donated by people and institutions from around the world, such as the organ, made of Canadian cedar and given by the Anglican Church of Canada, and the incredible modern stained-glass windows donated by the people of Sweden. The overall effect produces a breathtaking sense of awe at the beauty that can arise out of brutal destruction, particularly when people unite in love and a spirit of generosity. It is a profound statement of resurrection.

In the middle of the cathedral, I was struck by the certainty that I was standing on holy ground. God’s presence is, of course, available to us everywhere and anywhere, but it can be felt and sensed more readily, directly, and viscerally in some places than others. My 21-year-old self felt that holiness of place at Coventry for the first of only a handful of times in my life. The history that took place there, both during and after the war, made it a profoundly sacred space.

Forty-two years later, in 2016, I had the same degree of certainty that I was standing on sacred ground. I was in Hayneville, Alabama, and, again, it was the history that had taken place there that made it holy. This was the first time I participated in the Jonathan Myrick Daniels pilgrimage.

Most of us know the story of Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a student at Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In March 1965, he came to Alabama to engage in the drive to secure voting rights for Black citizens. Daniels was arrested in Fort Deposit on August 14, 1965, for joining a picket line; he was later transferred to the Hayneville jail. After a week of virtually unendurable conditions in the Lowndes County jail, he and his companions were unexpectedly released. Thirsty from the scorching August heat, four of them walked to Cash’s Store nearby to buy soft drinks. As Ruby Sales, a Black teenager, reached the top step of the entrance, a man with a gun appeared, cursing her. Daniels pulled himself in front of her to shield her from the sudden threat. As a result, he was killed by a blast from the twelve-gauge gun. The killer was an unemployed highway worker who had been “deputized” by the county sheriff. He was tried for manslaughter and acquitted by an all-white jury in the very courthouse where, as part of the annual pilgrimage, we participate in a Eucharist to honor and commemorate the life of Jonathan Daniels and those of the other fourteen Martyrs of Alabama who died in the civil rights movement.

At the pilgrimage, participants gather on the courthouse square in what is almost always the scorching heat of an Alabama summer. Proceeding from there, we walk to the jail where Daniels and others were kept in crowded conditions – it is a very small building – for a week, with no air conditioning and malfunctioning plumbing. In that place, it is possible to get a very small sense of what the heroes of that day endured to help bring about what they could only have hoped for: God’s kingdom in 1965 Alabama.

From the jail, the pilgrimage processes to the site of the store (now an insurance agency) where Daniels was killed. With kneeling pillows spread out on the pavement in front of the door, people fall to the ground in prayer. I have seen people literally prostrate themselves as they appreciate the profound evil that happened in this place. This is where I stood on that day in 2016 when I was overcome by the certainty that I was on holy ground. The presence of God was palpable in the place and in the people surrounding me, all of whom were there, as I was, to remember and to express our love for our neighbors.

From that place, the pilgrims return to the courthouse, climb the curved staircase, and enter a courtroom transformed into a sanctuary. The judge’s seat has become an altar holding the Eucharistic elements, and the jury box houses the choir. Again, the knowledge of what happened here heightens the sense of rightness of what we are doing. The service proceeds, not in sorrow but in joy and love. The singing is energized by what we have seen and experienced, and the prayers take on a meaning that we sometimes pass over lightly on a normal Sunday morning. There can be no doubt that God is present.

Since Daniels' death, he has been honored worldwide. He is permanently honored as one of the twentieth century's martyrs in Canterbury Cathedral’s Chapel of Saints and Martyrs. At Washington National Cathedral, a limestone bust and plaque of Daniels are positioned in the Human Rights Porch alongside other global peacemakers, including Mother Teresa and Oscar Romero. Virginia Military Institute, his alma mater, annually bestows the Jonathan M. Daniels Humanitarian Award. And he was officially added to the Episcopal Church's calendar as a martyr in 1991, with a designated feast day on August 21.

Sometimes history transforms a place, making it bigger than it is. There is something profoundly moving about going to a sacred place and remembering, something that enables the pilgrim to resolve, to repent, and to carry on the work of building the Beloved Community. In this case, the most dreary and unassuming spot – on a street that could be in any of hundreds of small nondescript Alabama towns – becomes a sacred space where God is among and around and throughout and where Gospel work is done. It is overwhelming and almost overpowering. This is a place where the transcendent becomes immanent, and the mundane becomes sublime.

The history of what happened here in August of 1965 – but also what happened in our country subsequently and as a result of the killing – makes Hayneville a place, not just of remembrance, but of resurrection. In this place, as we experience transformation, God shows us, once again, that the very worst events of history can become the means of new life.

In Hayneville, we remember in prayer the lives given, with the hope that we all may be strengthened in the ongoing struggle for racial justice, economic dignity, and genuine peace among the children of God in our own day. It is a place from which we go forward, transformed. In Daniels' own words, what we experience in this place makes us “indelibly and unspeakably One.”

We encourage everyone to come to Hayneville and be a part of this poignant experience on sacred ground.

For more information about the pilgrimage, visit https://www.dioala.org/jonathan-daniels-pilgrimage/.