Jonathan Myrick Daniels

Age 26

A white seminarian who became a civil rights activist

Lowndes County, Alabama

August 20, 1965

Jonathan Myrick Daniels was a 26-year-old white seminary student and civil rights activist from New Hampshire. He excelled academically, graduating as valedictorian from the Virginia Military Institute before studying at Harvard. Daniels then became a seminarian at the Episcopal Theological School (now the Episcopal Divinity School) in Massachusetts, from where he responded to calls by Martin Luther King Jr. for clergy to join the civil rights movement.

In August 1965, the month President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, Daniels was arrested in Alabama for participating in a voter rights demonstration. He was jailed for six days and released on August 20 in the small town of Hayneville, near Montgomery. Later that day, Daniels accompanied two young Black women and a Catholic priest, Father Richard Morrisroe, to a local store. Thomas Coleman, a highway engineer, stopped the group at the door and cursed at the two Black women, according to a Department of Justice memo.

Coleman then raised his shotgun toward one of the women, Ruby Sales, who was 17 at the time. Daniels pushed her aside, taking the shot at close range. He was fatally wounded in the chest and stomach. Coleman also shot Father Morrisroe in the back as the others fled.

Initial Investigation

The FBI launched a full investigation within days of the killing. Agents interviewed witnesses, including Father Morrisroe, who they visited in the hospital. Coleman, however, refused to talk.

In state court, Coleman maintained that he had acted in self-defense, believing the group was armed. He was indicted for manslaughter in September 1965, a decision that reportedly enraged Alabama’s then-attorney general, Richmond Flowers, who felt the charge should have been murder. According to a Department of Justice memo about the killing, Flowers personally took over the prosecution but was removed from the case following a “heated exchange in court.” Further, the judge refused to delay the trial until Morrisroe was well enough to testify. Later that month, an all-white jury deliberated for just over an hour before finding Coleman not guilty.

Contemporaneous news account identified Coleman as a deputy with the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office. However the FBI investigation at the time determined that while Coleman sometimes aided the sheriff’s office in handling police matters, he had no legal authority.

Since Daniels’ death, various religious and educational institutions have named awards in his honor. The Episcopal Church officially designated Daniels a martyr. Ruby Sales, the teenager he protected, is now recognized as a leading American advocate for social justice.

Till Act Status

In 2008, based on media coverage, the FBI began a review of Daniels’ case. The FBI was unable to find local investigative records because a fire had destroyed the building in which the records were stored, according to the Department of Justice memo about the case. The bureau did retrieve its own investigative file from 1965, as well as a death certificate for Coleman, who died of cancer in 1997. Citing Coleman’s death and an a lack of any other suspects, the case was closed in 2011.

Un(re)solved

Begin the full experience

About the Project

This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.

The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.

A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”

At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.

With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.

At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.

To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.

Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.

“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”

Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.

We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.

(Credits to come)