January 5

Hosea Williams, Alfred Dreyfus, Simon Stylites, Sarah of the Desert, Bernice Sandler, and Elizabeth Anscombe

Author

David Barnhart
January 05, 2026

Sign on the road between Gadsden and Centre, Alabama. 2004, own photo.

Today marks the birthday, in 1926, of Rev. Hosea Williams, a prominent civil rights leader, whose death we marked on November 16. In addition to earning a Purple Heart in World War 2, he was beaten nearly to death by white supremacists for drinking from a “Whites Only” water fountain. He pointed out that this happened while he was still in uniform. He would go on to found several nonprofits and hold political office at the state and local level. He described himself as “unbought and unbossed.”

Today marks an important point in “The Dreyfus Affair” in 1895, an event that highlighted antisemitism in France. On this day Alfred Dreyfus was falsely convicted of being a German spy, stripped of his rank and sent to Devil’s Island. He would later be exonerated.

Today is one of several feast days for Simon Stylites, who we remembered on September 2. It is also the feast day of Sarah of the Desert, one of the “Desert Mothers” of Christian monasticism in Egypt.

Today marks the death, in 2019, of Bernice Sandler, whose work for women’s equality in higher education gave her the title, “Godmother of Title IX.” 

Today also marks the death, in 2001, of Elizabeth Anscombe, philosopher from Ireland who taught at Cambridge, whose birthday we remembered on March 18. 

Reflection:

Elizabeth Anscombe wrote: 

“…getting one another to do things without the application of physical force is a necessity for human life, and that far beyond what could be secured by those other means.”

Bernice Sandler said of Title IX: 

“I think the real surprise has been that it’s been like a social revolution. We didn’t know that at the beginning. We thought it was just a little bit of discrimination here and there. But it’s a social revolution that will have as much impact as the industrial revolution. It’s a global revolution and what happens in the United States affects what happens in the rest of the world as well.” 

Prayer: God, give us encouragement that our small efforts may have eternal consequences. Amen.