(For most of his time in Selma, Daniels lived with a Negro family.)
... When we moved in with our present family, we knew where Bunnie's mother stood. A few nights before she had told us politely, but emphatically that she didn't like white people--any white people. She knew from countless experiences that they couldn't be trusted. Until very recently, she would not have allowed white people to stay in her home. Though saddened, we were grateful for her honesty and told her so. We also told her that though we would understand if she didn't believe us, we had begun to love her and her family deeply. By the night we moved in, her reserve had almost disappeared. She was wonderfully hospitable to us, notwithstanding the suspicion she must still have felt.
We spent an evening with...(them) at the Elks Club. Late in the evening a black nationalist approached her. "What are you doing here with them?" he asked; "They're white people."
Much to our surprise and perhaps a little to her own, she answered; "Jon and Judy are my friends. They're staying in my home. I'll pick my own friends, and nobody'll tell me otherwise." The name for that...is miracle....
Moments of joy, moments of sorrow
This is the stuff of which our life's made. There are moments of joy and moments of sorrow. Almost imperceptibly, some men grow in grace. Some men don't...
... There are good men here, just as there are bad men. There are competent leaders and a bungler here and there. We have activists who risk their lives to confront a people with the challenge of freedom and a nation with its conscience. We have neutralists who cautiously seek to calm troubled waters. We have the men about the work of reconciliation who are willing to reflect upon the cost and pay it.
Perhaps at one time or another, the two of us are all of those. Sometimes we take to the streets, sometimes we yawn through interminable meetings, sometimes we talk with white men in their homes and offices...Sometimes we confront the posse, and sometimes we hold a child. Sometimes we stand with men who have learned to hate and sometimes we must stand a little apart from them.
Our lives in Selma are filled with ambiguity, and in that we share with men everywhere. We are beginning to see the world as we never saw it before. We are truly in the world, and yet ultimately not of it. For through the bramble bush of doubt and fear and supposed success we are grouping our way to the realization that above all else, we are called to be saints. That is the mission the Church everywhere. And in this, Selma, Alabama is like all the world: it needs the life and witness of militant Saints!