For more than four months, some 100 Native Americans, Japanese Buddhists and other participants in The Longest Walk 2 have been making their way from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. on foot. Some walk, some run and some follow in support vehicles, but all of them are making the journey to send a message promoting harmony with the earth and bring awareness to Native American sacred sites.
They’re also cleaning up any litter that they encounter in their path. Modeled after The Longest Walk, a 1978 march held in response to legislation that would have abrogated treaties protecting Native American sovereignty, the walk is split into a northern route and a southern route, the latter of which is being led by American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis Banks. For the past two days, the southern route has taken a rest stop in Asheville, camping out at Southern Waterways on Amboy Road.
Wednesday morning, Xpress caught up with two participants: Margaret Morin, of the Chumash tribe of the Mission Indians, who joined the march in February in Bakersfield, Calif., and Andrei Jacobs, a Yup’ik Eskimo from Alaska who joined up in Taos, N.M. Click on the videos below to hear them speak about their experiences since the walk began.
— Rebecca Bowe, contributing editor
