22nd Annual Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage August 11

Saturday, August 11th

Lowndes County Courthouse

1 South Washington Street, Hayneville, AL 36040

22nd Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage

The Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage will take place in Hayneville, Lowndes County, Alabama on Saturday, August 11, 2018, organized by the Diocese of Alabama and the Diocese of Central Gulf Coast. Over its 22 years, the pilgrimage has grown into one of the most recognized pilgrimages of our Church, bringing people from many dioceses and seminaries across the country to the spot where Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian from Keene, New Hampshire, was shot to death in August 1965 trying to protect an African-American teenage girl. The event is held annually on the second Saturday of August. The Pilgrimage begins at 11:00 a.m. in front of the courthouse in Hayneville, the place where an all-white jury in a sham trial lasting less than an hour found Jonathan’s murderer, Tom Coleman, not guilty. Pilgrims march to the jail where Daniels and his companions were held, and from there to the place where he was killed at a small country store that has since been razed, then back to the courthouse. In a moving Eucharist, the judge’s bench of that 1965 trial becomes the altar on which the sacrament is consecrated. Fourteen other martyrs of the Alabama civil rights movement are recognized and honored in this service as well as Daniels. The keynote speaker this year is the Rev. Ed Bacon, retired priest in the Diocese of Los Angeles and former rector of All Saints, Pasadena for 20 years, now living in Birmingham. He was the Dean of the Cathedral in Jackson, Mississippi, before going to California. He is a graduate of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. He was ordained in 1983.