Political Quotes

“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.…”