2025 Jonathan Daniels and the Martyrs of Alabama Pilgrimage
Date: Saturday, August 9, 2025
Location: The pilgrimage begins at the courthouse square in Hayneville, Alabama
Time: 11am - 2pm CT
Alabama has many sacred spaces, places that are often connected with the civil rights movement. For Episcopalians in Alabama, perhaps the most significant is at Hayneville in Lowndes County, where Episcopal Divinity School seminarian Jonathan Daniels was martyred in August of 1965.
Please plan to join Episcopal Divinity School, The Episcopal Church in Alabama, and the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast Saturday, August 9, 2025, for the 28th Annual Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage.
The Jonathan Daniels pilgrimage has become a fixture for many and a reminder that the equality for which he gave his life is a continuing sacrifice. There is something profoundly moving about going back to a sacred place and remembering that enables the pilgrim to resolve, to repent, and to carry on the work of building the beloved community.
This year we will return again to Hayneville and remember Jonathan. We will gather in the courthouse square in Hayneville, Alabama, and begin our pilgrimage procession at 11 am. The procession will travel from the square to the old County Jail where Daniels was among those detained for a week after being arrested in Fort Deposit for picketing white-only businesses. The procession continues to the site of the old Varner’s Cash Store, where Daniels was killed. The procession ends in the Lowndes County Courthouse, where a service of Holy Communion will be celebrated in the courtroom where the man who shot Daniels had been tried and acquitted by an all-white jury.
The 2019 Jonathan Daniels’ Pilgrimage in Hayneville, Alabama. (via Grow Christians)
A pilgrim prays at the site of Jonathan Daniels’ death. (via Grow Christians)
Alabama Bishop Glenda Curry prays in front of the site of Varner’s Cash Store, where white Episcopal seminarian Jonathan Daniels was killed on Aug. 20, 1965, protecting a Black civil rights activist from a gunshot blast by a white part-time deputy. Photo: Shireen Korkzan/ENS
The registration form below is only for the vigil on August 8. Please register for the pilgrimage on August 9th here.