When I got back from a shower at the YWCA, Morishita took me aside to talk. He began, "Which do you think is more important, walking or talking?" I didn't understand what he meant, why both couldn't be done on a peace walk. Now, when Morishita was making an important point, he would not tell you directly what it was. He would tell you a story, and you were to infer the meaning.

His story was this, more or less. There was a monk in Nipponzan Myohoji who believed that talking about peace was more important than walking for peace. He attended lots of important peace conferences around the world and developed quite a reputation in some countries, in some places being better known than Fuji himself. But the teacher knew that he was respected as a monk because other monks were conducting peace walks. The lesson of this story was that people came to our programs because we showed our dedication to peace by committing our bodies to physical hardship.

Morishita thought that I was not talking enough about the peace walk at our evening programs. During the last few programs, I had talked some about other topics, like the folly of civil defense. One reason for this was that I was bored with giving the same speech night after night. After a while, I realized that he was right.

After lunch I retired to a small classroom to rest -- and to listen to the NCAA semi-finals, UNC against Houston, whose Twin Towers were to be toppled by NC State in the l983 finals. UNC won, and I could imagine how crazy things were going to be in Chapel Hill that night. As for us, we had a potluck supper, then a service, finally our program, at the synagogue. The service was impressive. I sensed a commonality behind the rituals of all three faiths our peace walk was privileged to see: Christian, Jewish, Buddhist.

The peace program, our first in a synagogue, was in the dining area where we were joined by Rabbi Michael Robinson, the first North Carolina native to become a rabbi. It was the last night of a three-month tour of the South, where he had been speaking on disarmament for the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Our paths had crossed earlier, in Montgomery. Before speaking, he told me that he had found the grassroots disarmament movement in the South much stronger than people had realized.

Now, in his speech, he said that Israel should support disarmament at the upcoming United Nations Special Session. If any country was vulnerable to nuclear attack, it was Israel, which has 70% of its people in only four urban areas.

   March 28, Rest day in Winston-Salem #2
It was Sunday. We were invited to attend two church services. Half of us attended the Quaker service, and half the Unitarian Universalist service. I went to the UU service because Rabbi Michael Robinson would be speaking. My friend Joe Felmet was in charge of the program, and Robinson talked first about Joe, who had been his classmate in an Asheville high school.

Joe has a long history of working for peace and justice. He resisted the draft in World War II, and for this was sent to a camp for CO resisters. After the war, Joe took part in the first freedom ride through the South. The freedom rides were sponsored by the War Resisters League and the Fellowship of Reconciliation and were to claim the right of Black people to sit anywhere on the bus that they wished. Joe got only as far as Smithfield, NC before being arrested and sent to jail for six months. He had been reading for a law degree and was denied permission to take the law exam because of this arrest.

Rabbi Robinson's topic was "Peace is not Shalom." He defined peace as the absence of war, while shalom implies much more than merely the absence of war. After the service, the church gave us a contribution of $l50. We were now to go to Miller Park for a "disarmament picnic". Morishita had been concerned that we were having two days without any walking, so he and Sakamaki decided they would walk the five miles from the church to the park, and were joined by Joe Felmet, who said that you have to carve out your first amendment rights step by step. We were concerned that they would be arrested because of the stern warning from the police a few days before.

The rest of us rode over to Miller Park. The three walkers arrived after about an hour and a half -- no problems. The undercover policeman of two days before was also present at the picnic, in the parking lot writing down license plate numbers of the 70 people there. Then he stayed in the hallway, while we picnicked in a room of the recreation center, it being cold out. We thought at the time he was acting as part of a "red squad" to intimidate the new peace group, CAN-Disarm, and maybe he was. But on June l0 in NYC, our route coordinator Pamela told me more: she had received a threatening letter from a man in North Carolina identifying himself as member of the National Association for the Advancement of White People. NAAWP was member of the United Racist Front, the coalition of groups (mainly Klan and Nazis) that killed the CWP civil rights workers in November '79. Because of the threats in the letter and the history of murderous violence of the groups involved, Pamela felt compelled to call the Federal Bureau of Investigation for protection; this man worked for the FBI.

We were told later that the FBI followed us closely through North Carolina and Virginia, but we noticed them only in Winston-Salem. An incident later in Virginia showed us that we were under close observation, however.

At the picnic there was a doctor, and he checked the blood pressure of the walkers whose pressure had been too high. All were normal, including Ishiyama.

   March 29, Winston-Salem to Greensboro
Today brought us back to where we were on the 26th. Our support person, David Martin, once a Trappist monk, then on the SF-Moscow walk in l96l, was now a union organizer. He had gotten parade permits easily from police departments in Winston-Salem and Kernersville. Both had become very friendly, all hostility gone, and they went out of their way to be sure we had no problems on our way back.

We walked through Winston-Salem, past the large cigarette factories. The smell of tobacco was strong. Then we retraced our steps to Kernersville, the undercover agent with us constantly. From Kernersville, we were driven to within four miles of the Greensboro city limits. After a couple of miles, David picked me up so that we could go to a fast food restaurant for coffee, and to talk about how better to accommodate the needs of the peace walkers: vegetarian food, medical attention, press relations, support vehicle, etc. He would pass ideas and information on to our coordinator in Virginia. I especially did not want press conferences at the end of the day's walk. It was hard for me to deal with the press after walking 15 or 20 miles. I had to do this often without even a minute to rest, nor even a glass of water.

That night, Sister Cora Marie found a large TV set for me to watch the NCAA finals in St. Pauls Catholic Church. Carolina won by one point -- one of the most dramatic I'd ever seen. Some of the Japanese and Europeans were there, and I explained the game excitedly, then expansively; they shared my joy for my team's victory. But a few days later I found myself reflecting on the childish chauvinism of wanting to be #l, in basketball or in national might. go to page 29