Rachel Maddow Chokes Up in Searing MLK Day Rant Connecting Trump Protests To Wrenching Civil Rights Murder

MS NOW host Rachel Maddow choked up several times during a searing MLK Day commentary connecting protests of President Donald Trump to the wrenching murder of Rev. Jonathan Daniels in 1965.

Prominent religious figures have stepped forward to support protests against things like Trump’s deportation forces in the wake of the Renee Good killing and the president’s crusade to seize Greenland.

For example, New Hampshire Bishop Rob Hirschfeld warned of a “new era of martyrdom” at a vigil for Good.

On Monday night’s edition of MS NOW’s The Rachel Maddow Show, the host delivered an emotional essay in which she recounted the murder of Daniels and juxtaposed it with the stark messages from contemporary leaders:

RACHEL MADDOW: On August 20th, at the end of those six days, in the stinking heat of that hot, hot August, the protesters were let out and they were just dumped outside. No transportation anywhere, no warning. They were just dumped out in the street.

And then picture this, this, this young seminarian again, he`s wearing his clerical collar, which he has now been wearing for six days in jail. He`s 26 years old and he`s with another priest, another white priest, a Catholic priest who`s about the same age as him. He`s newly ordained as a Catholic priest. He`s 27.

And these two priests, age 26 and 27, both white men, both dressed for work as priests, both dressed in their clerical collars. They get out of jail after six days spent in there, and when they get out, well, they and their fellow protesters are trying to figure out how are they going to get a ride, how are they going to get back to where they live? How are they going to let people know that they`re out?

These two priests and two young women who had also taken part in the protest, who had also been locked up, they decided they would cross the street from the jail and go get a Coke, go to a local store and get something to drink. It`s a really hot day in August.

Its these two priests, these two young white men and two young black women again, who had also been part of the protest and one of the young women. Her name is Joyce Bailey. She`s 19 years old. The other young woman, Ruby Sales, is just 17. But the four of them, the two priests and these two teenage girls, they walk over to the store to go get a soda.

And Jonathan Daniels, the episcopal seminarian, he borrows a dime from 17 year old ruby sales so he can buy a soda. And the four of them walk up to that store. And as they get up to the door of that store, a white man with a shotgun swears at them and tells them to get off this property, or I`ll blow your bleeping heads off. And that man standing at the door of the store, he levels the shotgun and he aims at 17-year-old Ruby Sales.

And this episcopal seminarian, Jonathan Daniels, he sees that the man is actually going to fire the shotgun, and he pushes 17-year-old Ruby Sales out of the way. He throws himself in front of the gun, and he takes the full blast from the shotgun to his chest, and he is killed.

And he is laying there on his back, on the ground, bleeding to death. Seventeen-year-old Ruby Sales survives. The other priest, 27-year-old Richard Morrisroe. He grabs the other young woman, this 19-year-old Joyce Bailey, and he runs with her and the man at the store with the gun having killed this episcopal priest, this episcopal seminarian having killed Daniels, he fires again and he shoots the Catholic priest in the back and leaves him for dead.

And 19-year-old Joyce Bailey survives, and 17-year-old Ruby Sales survives. And Richard Morrisroe, the Catholic priest, 27 years old, he is shot in the back. He shot in the spine. He is very nearly killed. He spends months in the hospital.

But Jonathan Daniels dies there. He is killed there at the door of that store in Hayneville — in Hayneville, Alabama.

And when they put his killer on trial in that Lowndes County courthouse, it was an all-white jury. And the man who killed that seminarian, he claimed self-defense. Self-defense? An armed man claiming self-defense against these two young priests and these two teenage girls. Needless to say, all of whom were unarmed, he claimed self-defense against them and he was acquitted. Took one hour and 43 minutes of thinking about it.

The following year, that killer did an interview with CBS News in which he proclaimed that he had no regrets about it. He said, quote, I would shoot them both tomorrow. By which he means both of those men in clerical collars.

Seventeen-year-old Ruby Sales went on to become a seminarian in her own right and an important civil rights activist herself. Jonathan Daniels went on to become a saint, quite literally. The Episcopal Church decades later named Jonathan Daniels, officially a Christian martyr. His feast day in the episcopal church is not the day he was killed August 20th. It`s actually August 14th, the day he was arrested for peacefully protesting before they killed him.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is honored today with a federal holiday in his name. When he heard about what happened that day in Hayneville, Dr. King said, quote, one of the most — one of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry, was performed by Jonathan Daniels.

In New Hampshire, where Jonathan Daniels is from in Concord, New Hampshire, the episcopal bishop there now in 2026, said that he had Jonathan Daniels on his mind when he gave new advice to the episcopal priests who he oversees now in New Hampshire. It was at a vigil for Renee Good, who was shot and killed in Minneapolis by an ICE officer when episcopal bishop in New Hampshire, Rob Hirschfeld said that he had asked his clergy in New Hampshire to prepare, quote, for a new era of martyrdom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROB HIRSCHFELD, EPISCOPAL BISHOP IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: I have told the clergy of the episcopal diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness, and I`ve asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: I`ve asked them to get their affairs in order.

In an interview this weekend with NPR, Bishop Hirshfeld explained what he meant by that very dramatic pronouncement. He said, quote, “What I said to the clergy was, I`m just asking you to live your life without fear of death. Be prepared. I`m not asking you to go look for that bullet. I`m simply saying, be ready. Have your affairs in order. Have your soul ready in case you find yourself in trouble.”

The bishop said, quote, “Not everyone can be a Jonathan Daniels, but we`re increasingly called to go into places that feel dangerous.”

While that episcopal bishop in New Hampshire was doing that interview with NPR yesterday, at the same time, Catholic Archbishop Timothy Broglio was doing an interview with the BBC.

Now, Archbishop Broglio is the archbishop who serves the U.S. Armed Forces for the Catholic Church. And Archbishop Broglio was asked in this BBC interview yesterday about the prospect that President Donald Trump may order the U.S. military to invade Greenland, to try to seize Greenland for the United States.

Archbishop Broglio told the BBC, quote, “It would be very difficult for a soldier or marine or a sailor by himself to disobey an order such as that, but strictly speaking, he or she would be within the realm of their own conscience. It would be morally acceptable to disobey that order.”

So yesterday, in one day, we have the episcopal bishop in New Hampshire explaining that his clergy need to have their wills written and their affairs in order, because they may be called to stand up against tyranny in the United States right now, to the point of dangerousness, to the point where their lives may be at risk, to the point where he is talking about martyrdom in his church.

The same day, the Catholic archbishop for the us armed services says it would be morally acceptable for U.S. service members to refuse orders from this president to invade a country that he is currently threatening, all in one day.

Then today, the very next day, the three highest ranking Catholic clerics in the United States, cardinals who oversee Washington, D.C. and Chicago and Newark all released a joint statement lambasting the foreign policy adventurism of the U.S. government right now, saying it calls into question the, quote, “moral role of our country”.

And, you know, that`s a lot all at once. I mean, whether or not you`re a religious person, even if you are a religious person, whether or not these developments are from your faith tradition, I think it`s safe to say there`s something going on when big mainline, mainstream religious leaders of very, very large, very influential religious denominations in the United States start talking in terms this stark, start literally talking about martyrdom, start trying to bring their moral force to bear against the behavior and actions of a U.S. president and the U.S. government that he commands.

Watch above via MS NOW’s The Rachel Maddow Show.

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