c. 1998 Religion News Service

LEVERETT, Mass. _ It was known as the Middle Passage _ the harrowing and often deadly leg of the trade triangle that brought millions of Africans to the Americas as slaves, an ugly legacy that one Buddhist nun calls”a lot of spiritual illness.” But in an effort to address _ and redress _ that spiritual illness, an interfaith group of pilgrims plans to step out in a yearlong march that will reverse the Middle Passage, as well as mark stops along the Underground Railroad, the loosely organized network that helped fugitive slaves escape to free states and Canada.

The Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage has been organized by an unlikely duo connected to a Buddhist temple in this western Massachusetts town: Sister Clare R. Carter, 48, an ordained nun in the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist order, and Ingrid C. Askew, 51, an African-American community activist.

After meeting six years ago at a breakfast honoring Martin Luther King, the Boston-born Carter, who has devoted her career to”peace and justice”issues such as the nuclear arms race, invited Askew to the Leverett Peace Pagoda, a towering temple Carter helped build in 1984.”(The pagoda) made me recognize my own humanity, made me look at my own humanity _ gave me lots to think about … how we treat each other in the world and how we should treat each other in the world,”Askew said.

So Askew, the only African-American affiliated with the Peace Pagoda, was pleased when Carter _ by then a close friend _ approached her a year later with the idea of retracing the Middle Passage.

Originally, Carter, who had recently returned from a peace walk in Sri Lanka, thought the pilgrimage should begin in Africa and travel to America.

Askew disagreed.”I didn’t want to go to Africa to leave it again,”she said.

Soon a board of advisers was assembled, including honorary chairman Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu of South Africa and Cornel West, a professor of the philosophy of religion and of Afro-American studies at Harvard.

For organizers, the interfaith and interracial nature of the pilgrimage is central.”We know for a fact that (the) hurt … perpetuated also affects the perpetrating person,”said Carter.”This makes for a lot of spiritual illness.” Some 60 people have registered for the yearlong pilgrimage, which will depart from the Peace Pagoda at the end of May and travel down the East Coast, with stops in Providence, R.I., Philadelphia, Washington, Raleigh, N.C., Atlanta and Mobile, Ala.. It should arrive in New Orleans by November.

From there, the pilgrimage will travel by ship to four Caribbean islands, Brazil, and on to an 18-stop walk through Africa, ending in May 1999 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Participants, almost all of whom have committed to the entire year, will pay their travel expenses but organizing committees throughout the route have arranged housing, meals and worship space for the pilgrims. Askew and Carter are currently working on securing a sea vessel, which may be donated from either Japan or South Africa.

There is tremendous diversity among the pilgrims, who will travel between 15 and 20 miles per day, Carter and Askew said. A handful of Buddhists, one American Indian, a Jew, a United Methodist and a Southern Baptist have registered.”We must examine deeply, literally, the ground we’re standing on,”said Carter, adding that between 30 million and 60 million Africans were taken into captivity during the slave trade, one-third of whom died. After slavery was ended, she said, more than 5,000 lynchings of African-Americans were recorded.

This”unparalleled horror”is part of the”Age of the Decline of the Dharma,”a period the Buddha predicted would occur 2,500 years after his death, Carter said. The only way to repair this departure from the Buddha’s teachings is to undertake an interfaith healing journey, she said.”It is the human beings that have to recover our true minds,”said Carter, who bears the traditional shaved head and yellow robes of ordained Buddhists.

Carter and Askew said they do not envision themselves as part of the”socially engaged Buddhism”movement, which seeks to apply Buddhist principles to social justice causes. But they said they hope their integration of spiritual themes with social action will motivate legislators to respond.”If the legislators’ hearts could be touched by the incalculable suffering that has happened in a few short years, we will be inevitably moved to change the policies and ways of thinking, at least begin that,”said Carter.”This pilgrimage has begun,”Askew said as she sipped tea beside the wood-burning stove that heats the residence at the Pagoda.”The walking part just hasn’t. People are changing their lives.” Askew told of one marcher _ a United Church of Christ minister in Framingham, Mass. _ who gave up a long-awaited call to a congregation to join the pilgrimage after speaking on the telephone with Askew for just 20 minutes.

Another walker has arranged to defer a graduate scholarship and is leaving school for a year to follow the pilgrimage.

Askew said an average of two people a week call her to find out more about the pilgrimage and end up committing to the walk. She also expects many short-term walkers will join along the route.

Carter and Askew both emphasized the necessity of the religious tone of the pilgrimage, which will begin every morning with an interfaith prayer.”When you’re addressing something that’s so evil as slavery and racism, you have to be connected to the spirit,”Askew said.

DEA END LEBOWITZ