BALTIMORE — These shoes may have been meant for walking. Though, after putting in over a thousand miles on the ground, they're ready for a change. And change is what Rev. Robert Turner is wanting.
“God is a God of justice,” Turner says. “He loves justice, and that is something that's been denied to Black people.”
Once a month since October 2022, Turner has been walking from Carroll Park in Southwest Baltimore, to the White House in Washington, D.C. He's calling on President Biden to issue an executive order on reparations. A move to provide remedies to African Americans for over 400 years of slavery, structural racism and inequities.
“We’re calling on the president to sign an executive order for HR 40. Similar to what Lyndon Baines Johnson did before he left office,” Turner says. “Before President Johnson left office, he signed the 1968 Civil Rights Act, which became the housing anti-discrimination bill. President Biden can do the same thing on his way out of office.”
Bill HR 40 would establish a federal commission, much like the one that investigated the forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. A stroke of the president's pen could make HR 40 law.
“Reparations is something that we are not just asking for,” Turner says. “It's something that we deserve. And it's not just for slavery either, because our suffering did not stop in 1865.”
Sept. 23 marked two years that the reverend has been walking. We caught up with him on Route 1 in Beltsville. He stopped at a Starbucks for a rest break, and while there, he changed into a new pair of sneakers.
“Even in the rain, we're, we're walking,” he says. “Hoping this brings much needed attention to the need for reparations for Black people in this country.”
We asked the White House for comment and did not hear back immediately.
