At lunch in front of a high school, Susan Sandelback and I talked about what it was like for her, being the first woman to go through Catholic seminary to become a priest, in a church that does not permit ordination of women. Though not ordained, Susan considers herself a priest, as do many other Atlantans, especially the students of the four universities where she serves in campus ministries.

Meanwhile Carole and Mercury were sitting in a circle with most of the high school students. They were especially good at talking with students. AFter about half an hour of talk, we joined hands in a circle and sang.

Before we left, about forty students decided to stay out of school that afternoon and walk with us. One entire ethics class joined. After all, they reasoned, the possible destruction of the planet with nuclear weapons was an ethical problem. There were almost one hundred of us, as we left lunch.

We took one more rest break in the afternoon in order not to arrive too early. Spirits were high. This was the most people who had walked with us, with many children and high school students. They tried to pick up the chant with us, and clapped their hands in time with the beat of the prayer drum.

We arrived at the courthouse on schedule. The chairman of the DeKalb county commissioners, a Vietnam veteran, greeted us with a strong statement of support. At this time, being in favor of disarmament was still controversial for a local politician.

Mercury had decided that he would take the risk of possible deportation. He would go to the German embassy in Atlanta for a visa. He was accompanied by a few people in the Atlanta peace movement. Few of us had time to say goodbye before he was driven back to Atlanta. The next day he would either be with us or be on a German-bound plane so we would never see him again. I observed Carole's anxiety, yet she took it philosophically: "If the universe intends it, we will be together again." The idea that the stars, planets, and infinite space were to play an active role in Mercury's proceedings at the German embassy the next day fascinated me, but I let it pass -- neither Carole nor I was in the mood for light-hearted debate.

At our house that night, we found ourselves in two groups. At a table in one room, there was a long meeting conducted in Japanese. The rest of us sat around the living room, reading or writing. Bill gave us each $l0, a gift from Pamela. $300 had been donated at Sunday's rally. We had wanted Pamela to keep all the money to help pay expenses which included a gigantic phone bill.

I felt better, but the chest cold still kept me awake most of the night and my constant coughing probably kept the others awake.

   February 24, Stone Mountain to Loganville
Today was another beautiful day with temperatures still in the 80s. Carole, John, Andy S., and I were off before sunrise to climb Stone Mountain, and watched a lovely sunrise from the top. Our thoughts ran from the chanting of the monks at 5 a.m. that morning (extra-loud in celebration of Stone Mountain's nearness), to the other sacred mountain in Australia. The monks felt a special kinship to native Americans. They believed that Japanese and native Americans shared a common ancestry. Because of this feeling of kinship, arrangements had been made for us to walk through Stone Mountain Park, a place considered sacred by native Americans and their ancient home. We were saddened to see statues of Southern military heroes carved on one side of the mountain.

We had to rush our breakfasts, especially Andy who, unfond of rice, cooked his own. He was just cleaning up dishes at 8:30, the time scheduled to leave. Shima went into the kitchen and began shouting at Andy, "It is 8:30, what are you doing? You should be ready to leave." It took him just a few more minutes to finish the dishes, but Shima was still upset. A bad start to the day.

While we were joining hands in a circle, our ritual beginning each day's walk, Morishita briefly explained safety rules to new walkers. Then he provided information obviously meant for the core group walkers. "The Peace March itself is our prayer for peace. Therefore we should be more disciplined. There should be one meter between you and the person ahead of you. The political banner should go about three meters before the prayer banner, carried by Sakamaki." He then provided us with the usual schedule of the day's activities.

The tension between Japanese and non-Japanese had developed to such an extent that this simple announcement was a cause of rebellion. First of all, we reasoned, the decision for a more disciplined walk was made at a meeting, last night, from which we had been excluded. It is hard to describe the feelings we had about this. We considered the walk to be our workplace. We were willing to submit our time in the evenings to the plans of the local coordinator. We felt that decisions affecting the walk were within our realm of control and should be decided by all. The time that we spent on the walk itself was the most relaxing of the whole day. Now it felt like the walk was becoming too rigid. It was evident, from the doctor's examination a few days ago, that we needed a reduction in tensions. Now just the opposite was happening.

The Park Service would not allow us to carry our political banner, but did allow the prayer banner. The students and teachers left us when we reached the park boundary. We continued for another three miles, then took our morning break. Sakamaki leaned the pole of the prayer banner against a sign at the service station during the break. A furious manager came out demanding we remove the banner.

Carole and I talked about Mercury, wondering what success he was having at the embassy. I did not really expect to see him again but did not say so. After the break Carole and I carried the banner in front. We often took turns carrying it. The poles were heavy, and on a windy day carrying the banner was a real task. But we felt that it was very important that people know who we were. We took pride in carrying it in such a way that it could be read by motorists. Now we had also to be sure that we were three meters in front of Sakamaki. Not only did the people carrying the banner have to watch out for traffic, for bottles and beer cans, and for holes, but also for Sakamaki. Carole and I felt this to be ridiculous. Let him be responsible for staying three meters behind us!

This morning it seemed that we could not walk at the right speed to suit him. He was constantly shouting to us to slow down. He always shouted to Carole and not to me. This made her still madder, as if singled out as a woman. After a few miles, Carole and I decided that if this was the game he wanted to play, we would play too. We walked at a snail's pace and always motioned for Sakamaki to get back. We felt like school kids trying to get even. We were not happy with what we were doing.

We stopped for lunch at a church in a small town, Social Circle. Our supporters at St. Michael's Church had fixed us dozens of sandwiches. Almost immediately, Carole complained to Morishita about Sakamaki.

Our police escort drove up, and we engaged him in conversation. We were the third march to go through Social Circle in a month. The first was a civil rights march, followed in a few weeks by a Ku Klux Klan march. Carloads of weapons were seized from the KKK during that march. The community had been polarized by the two marches; now here came a third march. But it brought a prayer for peace. Appropriate, I thought.

Though there was tension in our group, we believed we were a family and felt close to one another. Knowing that the Klan had so recently passed through added extra significance to our prayer; we tried extra hard to smile and waved to everyone we saw. I wondered what went on in their heads as they saw us walking behind a disarmament banner chanting "Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo" and beating prayer drums.

The police told us they would continue to provide us escort. They also told us which houses along the way held Klan sympathizers, information I saw no way to use. No hostile acts were directed at us that afternoon.

After 17 miles we arrived at the church in Loganville, where we were to spend the night. A potluck supper was provided, but we had the evening free. People broke into groups of two or three in different rooms. Some slept, some shot basketball, and some wrote letters.

Carole and I wrote letters. It seemed that she and I were always spending our free time writing letters. Every so often we would look up and wonder where Mercury was.

Morishita came in to talk with us. He always smiled. For the last few weeks, he was also always the mediator. Who could stay angry at such a cheerful smiling person? Morishita had the unique ability to really listen to what people were saying. He would sit, his head hung, trying to catch each word. Thus he'd sit, for long periods, listening, never quick to respond. Then he would answer: slowly, using simple language, but in a way that indicated he had understood even more than what you'd actually spoken. I have seldom met anyone who was more attentive to what was being said -- yet English was not his native language.

Susan Sandelback drove up about 9 o'clock with good news. Mercury was downstairs unpacking his gear from her car. He had a visa good for four months -- until the end of June. He came in a few minutes later to be warmly welcomed. He was back to stay.

February 25, Loganville to Athens Overnight the temperature turned much colder. Although we covered 24 miles, we walked only nine miles and were driven 15. Walking through Monroe, we had easily ten times as many police escorting us as we had had in Atlanta. There was a police car at every intersection. Traffic was stopped in the city to let us walk down the middle of the road. I believe that many cities would have used the event of confiscated weapons at the Klan march last week to revoke our parade permit. But evidently the Monroe police were proud of their competence to maintain safety while permitting free expression -- though most Monrovian bystanders looked like they did not understand what was going on.

Our next coordinators, Ray and Phyllis Durham, waited for us at a shopping center outside Athens. We transferred gear from one truck to another. As with so many supporters mentioned in this account, we found Ray and Phyllis to have lived -- to have served -- exceptional lives; and as with almost all such supporters, whom I remember well even without my full notes, I am not allowed space to recount their stories.

Ray and Phyllis told us not to expect too much -- maybe six or seven at the most would join us to walk into town. Well, the three-mile walk into Athens was one of the high points of our walk. We walked slowly through the neighborhoods of this university town. What a sight! strung out for over two blocks were hundreds of Athenians, led by four Buddhist monks from Japan. Many families with young children. Those not carrying signs or flags they had brought were clapping in time with the drums. The echoes of the drums, clapping, and chanting bounced off the walls of the downtown stores. I'm sure that nothing similar had happened in Athens before.

After several speakers at the courthouse welcoming ceremony, a woman from the crowd came up, asking to speak. She was concerned about the religious ritual in the peace walk, about all of us chanting and about our bowing to each other at the end of the walk. She was Jewish and had studied the rise of Hitler in Germany. She noted that at the beginning of his rise to power, he had used the Christian religion as a power base. She ondered if maybe the disarmament movement was not using religion in such a way, thus implying that it could lead to cultism or to fascism.

I tried to respond to her concerns. It seemed to me that the real "Jonestown cultists" were in the Pentagon, asking us all to drink from their plutonium-laced kool-aid vat. I could not apologize for the movement's having its support in the religious community; it seemed indeed most appropriate that the peace issue be addressed within the religious community. We were chanting a Buddhist prayer for peace because the Buddhist monks had taken a significant role in initiating the peace walk. I explained this was an interfaith walk, with the endorsement of five hundred world religious organizations, including the World Council of Churches.

After the rally I talked with her some more; she was still upset; I do not believe I was able to dispel her fears. go to page 19