The first day of my walk is now behind me.
The success of it is highlighted by what I was able to accomplish in just a few short days to see it come to fruition. Below I’ve listed a few bulleted highlights. I am having difficulty uploading images which I will have to work out in the coming days.
Other highlights included:
- A meet and greet picture taking opportunity with a group of French tourists visiting New York and being shown the Swing Low Harriet Tubman Memorial statue
- My brother’s friend Andre Kerman walking the first six miles with me.
- Being welcomed to New Rochelle by the Executive Director, Linda Tarrant-Reid, of grow! Lincoln Park along with her husband, Stewart. Linda and Stewart hosted me while in New Rochelle providing me dinner and lodging which I am so grateful for because it took me a while to recover from the effects of the heat. grow! Lincoln Park Community Garden (grow! LPCG), a program of the Lincoln Park Conservancy, located on the historic Lincoln Park Corridor, is a 10,000 square foot sustainable, organic garden situated on the city-owned campus of Lincoln Park.
grow! LPCG was created in 2011, with authorization from the New Rochelle City Council and support from Department of Parks & Recreation, as a lasting commemoration of the 50-year anniversary of the Lincoln Elementary School Desegregation Case of 1961. New Rochelle played an important role on the Maritime Underground Railroad for Freedom Seekers traveling north to New Bedford and Boston, Massachusetts via the Long Island Sound. - A Philadelphia Inquirer story by staff writer Valerie Russ about my walk from New York to Canada. The story is titled: “Philly’s ‘Walking Artist’ embarks on another leg of his epic tribute to Harriet Tubman. This time it is a 450-mile trek from NY to Canada”
Making Adjustments (Day 3)
It’s hard to call the effects from heat exhaustion I experienced yesterday a highlight but it was a major story for me. Despite drinking over almost 100 fluid ounces of water and juice, the last five miles of the walk into New Rochelle was tough as exhaustion set in. I finished but it took me several hours to recover last night. I’m grateful to Linda and Stewart for putting me up for the night.
To combat the formidable enemy, today I started walking around 6:30 a.m. to get ahead of the heat. I completed over half of my 14-mile walk today by ten o’clock. The remaining miles I am breaking up with cooling breaks at local public libraries to update my blog, map out my walking route, and answer email. Writing from the White Plains Public Library, I plan to walk another 2-3 miles to Purchase, New York this afternoon before calling it a day.
I took a two hour break at the Scarsdale Public Library this morning for a pre-arranged meeting with a wonderful local historian named Jordan Copeland. 
Copeland has been doing some wonderful work documenting the Black community of Scarsdale. Here’s a link to a 2020 program he created on the History of Black Community in Scarsdale.