The day before Halloween, we walked from Rockwood to Harriman, Tennessee. Button and I walked past leaves that were brown and dull orange under a dark clouded sky. It was perfectly spooky weather.
Harriman was the “town that temperance built.” According to their city’s website, Harriman was “founded by Frederick Gates in 1889 along the Emory River and the Cincinnati-Southern Railroad line. Harriman was planned as an alcohol-free utopian experiment, a model industrial city where no intoxicating beverages would be manufactured, stored, or sold.”
Despite the buttoned-up, turn-of-the-century atmosphere, we were pleased to see progressive yard signage along our walk by the Roane County Democrats that said “Protect the right to choose!!”, “Voting is a sacred right - USE IT!!” and “Global warming is a burning issue!!”.
On Halloween day, we continued our walk from Harriman to Oliver Springs, which would take us about 12 miles and then we would stay the night at Wil and Josie Bras’ home in Oak Ridge.
One of the aspects of a pilgrimage is that your spirit gets completely stripped down, till the only thing that carries you forward is devotion itself. While we enjoyed the company of strangers-turned-friends, eating delicious offerings of food, and breathing in the beauty of the land, I was also raw. Even on rest days, I was making up for the desk work that had to be done while I was away from the office, preparing for the next event logistics, and daily speaking engagements.
I felt an urgency to ready our movement for the next phase of the work, now that thousands of people were going to either be forced to give birth or flee the state for care. With a right-wing government ceding its duty to provide access to care, everyday people were going to have to take up the responsibility to care for each other like never before. The only way to do that was to help spread the word that we are each being called to be the trusted person that people in need can turn to in order to find help. We had to let folks know where to find patient navigation services and abortion funds.
I also felt compelled to connect with voters who may not see eye to eye with me, and yet, I had to try. On our walk, there was a small roadside stop, Taylor’s Bar and Grille. Even though I’m not a beer drinker, in the middle of the day on a Monday, I told Button I was going to buy her a drink. We walked into the smoke-filled bar, where guys were playing pool. Decorating the place were American and confederate flags, signs that read “Everyone needs something to believe in. I believe I’ll have another beer”, “Redneck Soshul Club: Family Member Only”, and Trump paraphernalia.
There were several old guys at the bar and we joined them. We stuck out like sore thumbs, wearing our neon yellow safety belts like we were elementary school traffic patrols. Button started spreading the gospel of abortion rights, and one of the guys said that he was just an old cowboy [hence his hat] and that “you girls should not have to be pregnant if you don’t want to.” He introduced us to several other guys in the bar, including the bartender. They all made it perfectly clear that they think that pregnancy decisions should not be anyone else’s business but the “lady’s”. He also assured us that he was not trying to get into our pants.
Sir. Please. As if.
We thought we were making headway, at least finding agreement on reproductive rights, until the cowboy made it known that if President Biden walked into this bar right now, he would shoot him in the face. Button took over the conversation at that point while I walked away. I figured she could use her white privilege for the good of humanity while I walked around the bar reading the walls, which read like a Cracker Barrel gift shop for the humorous downtrodden.
If anyone got these guys to vote for Dr. Jason Martin for governor, it was Button. This experience did make me understand more intensely that there is a wide gap between agreeing with bodily autonomy and how people actually vote. We have to increase their passion for abortion rights and motivate their vote on other intersectional issues.
That evening, we ate a scrumptious meal and gave out candy to kids stopping at Wil and Josie’s home in Oak Ridge, a sweet way to end a day of adventure.
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