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August 9
Evelina Haverfield, Ruby Hurley, and Edith Stein
David Barnhart
August 09, 2025
Today is the day, in 1974, that Richard Nixon resigned the presidency after the Watergate scandal. It is a reminder that powerful and corrupt leaders can be forced from power without violence—as long as there is sufficient political and moral resistance.
Today also marks the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
Today is the birthday, in 1867, of Evelina Haverfield, a Scottish suffragist who also worked as a nurse in Serbia and founded an orphanage there. Along with Emmeline Pankhurst, she was arrested multiple times for protesting.
Today marks the death, in 1980, of Ruby Hurley, civil rights leader and organizer in the NAACP. She was once referred to as “The Most Militant Negro Woman In The South.”
Today also marks the death of Edith Stein in 1942 at Auschwitz. She was German philosopher from a Jewish family who converted to Roman Catholicism late in life and became a Carmelite nun. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on empathy, and it was her reading of Teresa of Avila that brought her to her Christian conversion. Her chosen monastic name was Teresa Benedicta. She was killed both for her Jewish identity and her moral condemnation of Nazism, because she signed a statement by Church officials against the Nazi party.
Reflection:
Evelina Haverfield was a badass. At one point she was charged with punching a police officer at a protest. She reportedly said:
“It was not hard enough. Next time I will bring a revolver.”
She also was a champion of women’s bicycle use, which was scandalous in the day but also a marker of women’s liberation. She named her bicycle “Pegasus.” She was likely bisexual, and though she was married twice she also partnered with Vera Holme in the second half of her life.
In a speech she gave in 1958. Ruby Hurley said that fighting white supremacy was both about liberation and
“…helping white people to free their consciousnesses of guilt, and to live democratically like Christians should in a democratic America.”
Edith Stein wrote many things. Here are some gems:
"The world doesn't need what women have, it needs what women are."
“The concept which assumes that everything in the Church is irrevocably set for all times appears to me to be a false one. It would be naive to disregard that the Church has a history; the Church is a human institution and like all things human, was destined to change and evolve; likewise, its development takes place often in the form of struggles.”
The above quote is in line with what I wrote a couple of days ago in my reflection on August 7.
Prayer: Author of History, keep our eyes fixed on the horizon of your kingdom, in which all people are free because they are exactly who you made them to be. Amen.