Commentary: There is Not Enough Coverage of Longest Walk 3

by Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Condition. Discussion »

WINDOW ROCK, ARIZONA - This past Monday marked the one-month mark for Longest Walk 3 - Reversing Diabetes, which began at San Diego, California on February 14. The Native News Network launched the same time; so we are marking our first month, as well.

Dennis Banks and Granddaughter Zinzii

In planning the website’s launch, given the five-month long journey across the country to some forty American Indian reservations, we felt covering the Longest Walk 3 would provide a unique opportunity to make our mark nationally.

Beyond beginning an American Indian website and gaining rapid penetration, we believed in the core premise of the Longest Walk 3, which is to bring awareness of diabetes as it negatively impacts American Indian lives.

Yesterday, we ran a section within the article“Reflections at the First Month Mark of the Longest Walk 3 - Reversing Diabetes” labeled: “One Month Later…What I Learned,” which featured comments from several participants of the event who have been with the Longest Walk 3 for the past month.

While time constraints have not allowed me to cover the event for an entire month, I have spent 17 days, traveling two states, California and Arizona, covering some 400 miles and visiting twelve American Indian tribes with the Longest Walk 3 during its first month.

Along the route of the Longest Walk 3,
I have learned a few things as well:

I learned a walk across America for a cause is not a mere symbolic 15-minute stroll down an avenue to recognize a cause or in memory of a hero, such as what happens on Martin Luther King Day or Cesar Chavez Day. The Longest Walk 3 is a grueling experience. Its walkers and runners get blisters and leg cramps, as they endure the blistering hot sun or the harshness of rainy days and then end up sleeping on hard church or gym floors on most nights.

Levi at Work Along the Longest Walk 3

I learned my admiration of Dennis Banks, who decided to lead the walk across of America once he was diagnosed with diabetes, deepened. He is a 75-year old man, who could have stayed home in Minnesota and sat back on a rocker and rely on the merits of what he has already accomplished for American Indians as the co-founder of the American Indian Movement.

But, his great commitment and love for his people - the country’s first people - did not allow him to do so. I personally witnessed him getting up in the middle of night to put logs on a fire as to keep the fire going so members of the walk would keep warm. I saw him drive a U-Haul truck with a trailer weighed down with luggage and supplies. While he is of legendary proportions, I saw him show love, tenderness and kindness to his three granddaughters traveling with the walk.

I learned that American Indians genuinely care for one another

One story sticks out to me in my mind: it happened at the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation late in the afternoon one recent Sunday. Due to some scheduling conflicts, the Longest Walk 3 arrived a few days above schedule. In essence some forty people showed up almost unannounced.

I happened to be in the advance vehicle. Tribal member and social worker, Joyce Tovar met us along side of the reservation road. She had just come home from a conference in Phoenix and was tired. But she came to meet us still unsure of where her tribe would house the Longest Walk 3 participants. She told me she told her son she was going bring all of us to her house and let us stay there.

“I told my son, this is what Indians do. We open our homes. We take care of one another,”

she explained to her astonished son. As it turned out, Judy Ferreira, the administrative assistant to the tribal chairman, Terry Rambler, called Tovar and instructed her to lead us to the tribal offices. She arranged to have all participants of the Longest Walk 3 to stay in the comforts of the Apache Gold Casino and Resort. There the tribe lodged and fed us.

I learned even with all the grand efforts of the hard-working clinicians who work exclusively with American Indians who are diabetic, something much more has to be done to reverse - arrest - the horrific disease that afflicts American Indians at a rate that is two to three times the national average. Longest Walk 3 participants have heard many sad stories at various Indian reservations about lost loved ones who have died way too young as the result of diabetes.

So, the Native News Network is committed to spread the word about what is happening in Indian Country. If it looks as if there is overkill on stories about the Longest Walk 3, I would argue, there have not been enough.

Hopefully, the small contribution of the spreading the word will help find a way to heal Indian Country.