Leaving San Francisco after a sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz, Native Americans and allies set off on foot in February for Washington, DC. They arrived in July, over 4000 miles later. Longest Walk 2 commemorated an earlier walk in 1978. But the tradition of walking for your rights goes back much further than 30 years.

The act of putting one foot in front of the other as a political statement is a visible, physical commitment. Though quite different from a hunger strike, in this regard the long walk is similar. Otherwise powerless people put their bodies on the line.

The moment a walker steps out can be a dramatic act of clarification. As Longest Walk organizer Dennis Banks said, “The road begins at the bottom of your feet.”

Inspiration for the modern political long walk begins with Gandhi’s 1930 march to the sea. British colonial law prohibited Indians from making their own salt, enforcing a British monopoly. Gandhi and 78 fellow marchers protested this law by walking 240 miles to the coast. The journey took 23 days and is described in an archive from UCLA:

“[W]ith each passing day an increasing number of people joined Gandhi on the march. . . . On April 5, Gandhi arrived . . . and picked up a small lump of natural salt. Gandhi had now broken the law. . . . No sooner had Gandhi violated the law than everywhere others followed suit: within one week the jails were full.”

The 1965 march for voting rights from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery was only 54 miles and almost immediately victorious, but it had a rocky start. The first attempt to leave Selma over the Edmund Pettus Bridge was brutally suppressed. Televised police clubbings galvanized national attention, and sympathizers streamed to Selma. A second attempt, led by Martin Luther King Jr., faced a court order that threatened to hamstring the civil rights movement. Torn between wishes to defy the injunction and fears of its consequences, King led marchers across the bridge, then executed a quick U-turn back to Selma. Finally, backed by a reluctant President Johnson, the marchers set out again with federal protection. Five days later, they entered Montgomery to jubilant crowds, which had also lined the route at great personal risk. Two months later, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act.

King spoke at Montgomery: “Last Sunday, more than eight thousand of us started on a mighty walk from Selma, Alabama. . . . Some of our faces are burned from the outpourings of the sweltering sun. Some have literally slept in the mud. . . . I can say, as Sister Pollard—a seventy-year-old Negro woman who lived in this community during the bus boycott—said, ‘My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.’”

One year later, 70 striking Latino and Filipino farmworkers in California walked from Delano over 300 miles along a winding route past small towns, reaching Sacramento 10,000 strong 25 days later. El Teatro Campesino staged skits every night, and the march drew media and public support.

“It was overwhelming seeing so many people join us and support us in our struggle,” said striker and march captain Roberto Bustos.

The strike and march protested a Central Valley grower’s aerial spraying of agricultural workers in retaliation for union organizing. By the time the march reached Sacramento, the grower had signed an agreement with the union.

Individuals also embark on endless walks. The week Longest Walk 2 arrived in Washington was also the centennial of the birth of Peace Pilgrim, who began her journey in Pasadena in 1953.

“She stopped counting the miles at 25,000,” the centennial website said. “A penniless pilgrim, carrying only a comb and toothbrush, Peace Pilgrim vowed to remain a wanderer until humankind learned the way of peace.”

Ironically, Peace Pilgrim was killed in a head-on collision while being driven to a speaking engagement in 1981.

John Francis started his walk from Point Reyes following a 1971 oil spill that covered beaches and killed birds and sea animals along San Francisco Bay. He refused to use motorized vehicles entirely and shortly began refusing to speak as well. Francis trekked throughout North and South America, earning a Ph.D. along the way. He writes about his 17 years of silence and 22 years of walking in Planetwalker. The nonprofit Planetwalk organization Francis founded in 1982 is dedicated to “saving the planet one step at a time.”

Longest Walk 2 combined many of the goals of these earlier walks: environmental healing, communication along the road, and peace, as is clear from its mission statement, “We walk in the same spirit as those who traveled the path of the original Longest Walk of 1978. The issues at hand 30 years ago are still with us today. From all four directions we hear the pleas of the exploited, poisoned, and disrespected. Our people are suffering. Mother Earth is suffering. We raise our voices on behalf of all who share our concerns.”

A marcher commented that the communities they passed through were so welcoming, one participant called it “the longest buffet.”

The 1978 march protested Congressional legislation that would have abrogated treaties protecting Native American sovereignty. As a result, 11 bills were defeated. The 2008 walk drew attention to the environment and pressed for protection of sacred sites.

Doubts about the impact walkers may have seem to fade during the journey itself. Shanawa Littlebow, quoted on sky.com, said, “To say it doesn’t work, it’s to say a wheel doesn’t work when it’s turning. We’re turning. We’re walking. It’s working.”

Fran Taylor can be reached at frances.taylor@cmpmedica.com or 415/874-4570.


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