DEL.ICIO.USGlobal peace walk ends with a bang
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, April 06, 2009
It had been three years since Audri Scott Williams had seen Auburn Avenue in Atlanta — three years of sleeping on borrowed beds in countries far from home. Last time she stepped onto this old street, she had been heading away from the King Center toward Centennial Olympic Park and off on a worldwide peace walk she called the “Trail of Dreams.”
By Saturday, she had decided it was time to come home.
Jamie Gumbrecht/jgumbrecht@ajc.com
Karen Hunter Watson, 58, (left) and Audri Scott Williams, 53, took Williams’ mother with them on the long journey.
Photo courtesy of Audri Scott Williams
Karen Watson (from left), Audri Williams and Chandelle Binns in front of the Egyptian pyramids during their global walk.
Williams, 53, and about 25 peace walkers reversed their inaugural route to head from the downtown park to the King Center, banging drums and waving flags.
When they reached Peachtree Street, the parade had swelled to 50 people — kids on skateboards, dads with infants strapped to their chests, tourists with cameras. On Auburn, drivers pulled over, shut off their engines and stood with them. A band of drummers and dancers met them on the street and performed, stopping traffic.
Williams had one word for it: “Beautiful.”
Some peace walkers were with Williams every step of the way. They included her friend and fellow Atlantan, Karen Hunter Watson, 58, and Williams’ mother, 79-year-old “Mama” Natalie Scott Williams, who has Alzheimer’s disease and uses a wheelchair.
Georgia State University student Rahfiya Carrion, 32, and her 4-year-old daughter, Zenobia Mustafa, walked with them for a year and a half. Brenda Kay, 55, housed the walkers while they were in Australia, joined them for their final walk in the United States and plans to come back in September to continue the mission they’d documented on the Web site, Trailofdreamsworldpeacewalk.com.
The walk had no corporate sponsor, no plan beyond a three-year timeline, no roster of participants — usually just about six women, walking on the side of a road.
Williams and the long-term walkers left their jobs and sold most of their possessions. They relied on friends back home and the kindness of strangers to get them through Mexico, Guatemala, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, India, Pakistan, Morocco, Greece, Spain, Holland, the Caribbean and up and down the West and East coasts of the United States.
They were rarely certain of their path, but they never went a night without a roof over their heads. They calculate they walked about 18,000 miles, with a lot of stops to meet people, work in communities or rest.
“It was a lotta miles and a lotta shoes,” Williams said, estimating they used about seven pairs apiece over the length of the walk.
In each country, the lessons were different.
In Australia, environmental conservation was key to being there. In India, the walkers discovered spirituality, how a country can take in every faith its people hold. In Morocco, it was all about family; men and women would lift little Zenobia in the air to give her kisses. No child should ever feel unloved, Williams decided.
And what now in the United States, where all the walkers must now find jobs, places to live, ways to reclaim their lives without losing the ones they built on two feet?
“You know, it’s interesting,” Williams began. Her voice trailed off.
She mentioned how people poured into the streets in the Virgin Islands the night Barack Obama was elected president.
And how, while in Australia, she made one phone call to Atlanta that enabled a class of 30 Australian middle school students to delve deeply into the city’s fabric, thanks to her contacts, when they visited.
“America represents the hope of the world,” Williams finally said. “As America goes, so goes the rest of the world. I never fully realized. That shows the responsibility we have to the rest of the world.”
— Staff writer Chris Quinn contributed to this article.
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