Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage 2023

Please join us on Saturday, August 12, 2023, for the 26th Annual Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage. 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 Rt. Rev. Phoebe Roaf, Bishop of the Diocese of West Tennessee, will be our preacher. Bishop Roaf grew up in the Arkansas Delta city of Pine Bluff. She received a law degree from the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, clerked for two years for a federal Court of Appeals judge, and worked in a New Orleans firm from 2000 to 2005. In her early 40s, she discerned a call to ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church. She graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in 2008. In 2018, she was elected to serve as Bishop of the Diocese of West Tennessee, which covers all of Tennessee west of the Tennessee River. This year will offer a Youth Pilgrimage for youth in 9th-12th grade. Youth Pilgrims are invited to join a weekend program beginning on Friday, August 11, at the Church of the Ascension in Montgomery, which will conclude on Sunday, August 13. This program will offer a weekend to learn, connect, and worship together. Youth Pilgrims can also register for special programming on Saturday only.

For more information about how to get involved and to register for the pilgrimage and youth weekend, please scan the QR code.