Daniels Arch & Courtyard

Cadet Jonathan Myrick Daniels, 1961

Daniels' VMI Yearbook entry, First Classman 1961

Inside Daniels Courtyard, Spring 2016

Daniels Arch, 2018

Jonathan M. Daniels was valedictorian of the VMI Class of 1961. After graduation, he enrolled at Harvard University to pursue English literature before ultimately attending seminary at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was at this point that Daniels became actively involved in the Civil Rights movement by assisting with voter registration efforts in Alabama. He also walked in the famous march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Daniels Valedictory Address, 1961

LET'S LISTEN!

Daniels in march supporting voter registration, Camden, AL, Spring 1965

Daniels in front of the George Washington Carver housing project in Selma, AL, 1965

Daniels in the Alonzo West family home with one of the children, 1865

Daniels with colleagues Judith Upham and Ronald Fuller in Alabama, April 1865

Daniels at home with members of the West family, 1965

At a voter rights demonstration in Fort Deposit, AL, in August 1865, Daniels and twenty-two others were arrested and taken to Hayneville county jail. Following their release, Daniels and Richard Morrisroe, a priest, went with two black teenagers, Joyce Bailey and Ruby Sales, to Cash's Store for a soda. At the store, a part-time deputy sheriff named Tom Coleman confronted them with a shotgun. When Coleman aimed the shotgun at Ruby Sales, Daniels pushed her out of the way, saving her life. The shot from Coleman's shotgun hit Daniels and killed him instantly. Because of this ultimate selfless act, the only Barracks arch named for a cadet is the Daniels Arch and Courtyard.

Cadets in the Daniels Courtyard for the Jonathan Daniels ceremony, March 9, 2016

Cadets at the ceremony honoring Jonathan Daniels, March 5, 2014

Daniels Arch, 2006

Inside Daniels Courtyard, 2018

Daniels' selfless act is celebrated through two books and a 1999 documentary about his life. The date of his death is on the Episcopal Church's Calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts and he is among the fifteen people honored in Canterbury Cathedral's Chapel of Martyrs in England. At VMI, the Board of Visitors established the Jonathan M. Daniels '61 Humanitarian Award in 1997. The Daniels Arch and Courtyard memorializes Daniels’ heroic act on the VMI campus as an example for all future Cadets.