[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3783-3784]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1215
                    HONORING JONATHAN MYRICK DANIELS

  (Ms. KUSTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. KUSTER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honor the memory of a 
Granite Stater who played an important role in the Civil Rights 
Movement: Jonathan Myrick Daniels of Keene, New Hampshire.
  During his studies at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, Dr. Daniels' faith inspired him to travel to Alabama, 
where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had sought to help the fellow 
clergymembers in registering African Americans to vote.
  Along with other students, including our esteemed colleague, 
Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, Jonathan spent the summer and spring 
advocating for civil rights, standing guard during the march from Selma 
to Montgomery, and even helping to integrate an Episcopal church in 
Selma.
  While many of his fellow students ultimately traveled back north, Mr. 
Daniels chose to indefinitely remain in Alabama and continue to fight 
for equal rights.
  Sadly, on August 20, 1965, Mr. Daniels was walking with fellow 
students when a sheriff's deputy happened upon the group and threatened 
them with his gun. Seeing the weapon pointed in their direction, Mr. 
Daniels placed himself in front of a 17-year-old girl and took the 
bullet that was meant for her. Friends of Jonathan had noted that he 
was ``willing and prepared to die to help others,'' and tragically, 
that is indeed what happened.
  Jonathan Daniels would have been 76 years old this Friday. He left 
this world far too soon, and he died fighting for the values he held 
dear: justice, equality, and human dignity.

[[Page 3784]]

  As we celebrate this year's 50th anniversary of the landmark Voting 
Rights Act, we honor the memory of Jonathan Daniels and those like him 
who fought for the essential rights of every American.

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