A Walk of the People – A Pilgrimage for Life was a walking personal and political action organized by peace activists Dale James Outhouse and Pamela Blockey O'Brien to bring attention to the perils of impending nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The walk started on March 1, 1984, in Point Conception, California, and traversed 7,000 miles, ending in Hungary in late 1985. Some members went by train to Moscow, Russia.
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Why the project was organized
In 1984, the global nuclear arms race proceeded at a furious pace. Some United States leaders talked of a winnable nuclear war against the Soviet Union. U.S. President Ronald Reagan and USSR Premier Konstantin Chernenko had not as much as met in the previous four years. More nuclear weapons had been installed in Europe on both sides of the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain, pointing at each other.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set its traditional “Doomsday Clock,” which has marked the danger of nuclear war since 1947, to three minutes before midnight in 1984. That was the closest the clock had been to midnight in three decades, with it being at 12 minutes in 1972, when the U.S. and former Soviet Union signed SALT I. [1]
Since political leaders were not even talking, the crucial times demanded extraordinary action from citizens. One method of trying to break through this wall of East-West division was a walk of some 7,000 miles from California to Moscow, Russia called A Walk of the People – A Pilgrimage for Life. The project was organized primarily by peace activist Dale James Outhouse and Pamela Blockey O'Brien, a long-time organizer of peace, human rights, and social justice projects and member of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. [2]
More details on the walk
On March 1, 1984, a handful of people started walking from Point Conception, California. The participants proceeded to Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, then the Deep South, picking up people along the way. By the time the project reached Washington, D.C. in November 1984, the number of full-time walkers was up to 15. [“Walking toward Moscow.” The New York Times, Nov. 16, 1984; Joan Galler, “Marchers make area stop in cross country journey.” Woodbridge News Tribune, Dec. 12, 1984.] The walk continued to New York City, then to Europe, with a contingent eventually reaching Moscow in December 1985.
Participants met hundreds of people from all walks of life, government officials, and religious leaders, and collected letters, poems, drawings, and other messages of peace to distribute to people beyond the Berlin Wall. Besides that direct people-to-people action, members raised awareness through the media. The walk was covered by some 1,600 newspapers and 500 radio and television stations in the U.S. and Europe, from CNN to national television in France. [3]
Some participants continued to participate in similar breaking-down-the-walls projects, including the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, a larger group that crossed the U.S. in 1986; and a walk that took place in India in 1987-88. By 1988, the “Doomsday Clock” was back up to six minutes and continued rising as East-West relations improved, although it has since gone back down to five minutes, as of 2007. [4]
Book on project
One participant, journalist Kevin James Shay, wrote a book about the inside story of the project called Walking through the Wall [5]. The book won a 2002 International PeaceWriting Award, sponsored by the Omni Center for Peace, Justice, & Ecology of Fayetteville, Arkansas, and the Peace and Justice Studies Association of Evergreen State College, Washington. [6]
Some Key Participants Die
Andy Rector, who walked all the way from Alabama until the end, died of cancer in 1994. Solange Fernex, the main organizer in Europe, also succumbed to cancer in 2006. And Barbara Hirshkowitz, who walked through much of the route in the United States, died of cancer in 2007.
Pamela Blockey O'Brien, the main organizer of A Walk of the People in the U.S., died of an asthma attack and COPD in 2009. Edith Webber, who walked along with her husband, Carroll Webber, through part of Europe, died in 2009 after a bout with pneumonia at the age of 89.
Other Cross-Country Peace Marches
Shay also participated in the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, in which several hundred people hiked across the U.S. in 1986. He walked with the Great Peace March for its first week in California.
Peace Pilgrim, as Mildred Lisette Norman was known, walked across the United States, mostly on her own, from 1953 until 1981. Many of the participants of Walk of the People were inspired by her and met people who knew Peace Pilgrim.
A Walk to Moscow crossed the U.S. and Europe from 1981 to 1983. Walk of the People members met with Walk to Moscow peace walk members in Europe and even stayed at the same mill house in Regnitzlosau, Germany, while waiting for Eastern bloc visas.