Jonathan Daniels Buried on August 24, 1965

Jonathan Daniels was killed in Hayneville Alabama on August 20, 1965. It was also his Mother’s birthday. There was a card he had written to her in his final effects. The racial tension in the “Black Belt” area of Alabama was very high after Jonathan’s murder and the near murder of a priest who was shot several times in the back by the same man who killed Jonathan. Friends in the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the organization he was working with, made calls made to the hospitals and funeral homes in the area to find his body, but it took a Senator’s inquiry to find which funeral home. No other funeral home wanted to be involved. Eventually a family friend offered to fly his body back to New England, where a hearse was waiting to bring him to Keene. He was buried next to his father, and eventually his mother was also buried here. There were hundreds of mourners at the funeral, including members of SNCC. Stokely Carmichael, Ruby Sales, Joyce Bailey all drove from Alabama for the funeral. Martin Luther King Jr. said “one of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels”. Connie Daniels, his mother, was sent a telegram by President Lyndon Johnson, who offered his condolences.