Walking to ‘put the movement’ back into the civil rights movement: A Q&A with Philly ‘walking artist’ Ken Johnston

Last year, Ken Johnston, the Cobbs Creek man who describes himself as a “walking artist,” made two long-distance walks in honor of the 200th anniversary of Harriet Tubman’s birth.

From April to May 2022, Johnston completed a 165-mile Walk to Freedom from Cape May to Burlington City, following the routes of Underground Railroad locations in South Jersey.

Then, from July to September 2022, he embarked on a 450-mile excursion from New York to Canada following Tubman’s trail.

Tubman, who was born in Dorchester County, Md., lived in St. Catharines, Ontario, for about 10 years before she returned to the U.S. in 1861 to join the Union Army and worked as a nurse, scout, and a spy. During the Civil War, she helped lead the 1863 Combahee River raid in South Carolina.

The New York to Canada walk was a continuous walk where Johnston hiked from Harlem through important Underground Railroad sites in Albany, Auburn, Seneca Falls, Buffalo, and Niagara Falls before arriving in Canada on Sept. 14, 2022.

This year, Johnston, 62, is returning to Maryland to help lead a 3.5-mile Christmas Eve Walk with Harriet at sunset from the Poplar Neck Plantation in Caroline County — where Tubman, her father, and one of her brothers once worked.

The walk will end at the Choptank River, which historians believe Tubman followed to freedom when she made her first escape from enslavement alone in 1849, when she arrived in Philadelphia at William Still’s office.

Tubman’s biographer, Kate Clifford Larson, wrote about the myths and facts about Tubman, whom she said returned to Maryland about 13 times and rescued 70 people. (She led the rescue of hundreds more during the Combahee River raid.)

Johnston will colead the Christmas Eve walk with Linda Harris, director of events and planning for the the Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center, in Cambridge, Md.

The Inquirer talked with Johnston, who works as a site supervisor at the Morris Arboretum, to ask what motivates him to walk long distances. Harris was interviewed in Maryland.

» READ MORE: Philly ‘walking artist’ arrives in St. Catharines, Ontario, where Harriet Tubman once lived

Johnston: I was born in Philadelphia and lived in Germantown until I was about 12. That’s when my parents divorced and decided I would get a better education if I moved with my father to Massachusetts. I went to a private school there and attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. But I didn’t graduate until years later.

Johnston: I consider walking as a piece of performance art where I am learning these stories about history and telling them to others. I also have lantern parades and workshops where I teach people how to make lanterns. I started making lanterns before I made the walks. But in telling the stories, I use lanterns as a way of illuminating the story of the Underground Railroad and illuminating issues in their current lives.

Johnston: In 2020, I did my first joint walk with the museum to commemorate Tubman’s 1854 Christmas Day rescue of her three brothers. It is believed that Tubman waited until Christmas night to rescue her brothers and one of the brother’s fiancée. Enslaved people often escaped on the holidays when white people would have been more relaxed about allowing Black families to get together.

Johnston: Yes, In 2019, I began a solo walk starting at Poplar Neck on Christmas Eve, probably just around midnight. It was the start of my Poplar Neck to Philadelphia walk. It was a 140-mile walk and I made it to Philadelphia in February 2020.

I had been planning to walk from Poplar Neck to New York. But shortly after arriving back in Philadelphia, the pandemic hit. So I didn’t continue the walk from Philadelphia to New York until April 2021.

As I was making these walks, people kept asking me, “Are you going to walk all the way to Canada?” — where Tubman eventually moved. Then, last year, in July, the opportunity came for me to finish the walk to Canada. I started in New York, where I’d left off in 2021, at the Harriet Tubman statue in Harlem. That New York to Canada walk [in 2022] was a continuation of the walk I had started in Poplar Neck in 2019.

Johnston: In 2019, I returned to Philadelphia after living in Massachusetts for nearly 30 years. In 2018, I had completed a long, 400-mile walk from Selma [Ala.] to Memphis to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When I came back to Philly, I was thinking of which civil rights hero I could do a walk about to pursue my interest in history and to also become familiar with the Philadelphia region again. When the movie Harriet came out in November, I thought it was a perfect time to explore her history.

Johnston: In April 2019, I walked with a group who invited me to Ireland on a 75-mile walk to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Belfast to Derry civil rights march. Later that year, in September, my brother Keir Johnston, who is an artist, invited me to take part in a 215-mile walk across Puerto Rico, from Isabela to Yabucoa, to mark the second anniversary of Hurricane Maria.

Johnston: In 2017, I was living in Massachusetts and I was feeling like I was sitting at my desk too much and my body needed to move. I had also been dealing with some personal tragedies, the death of my daughter and the end of my marriage. I just felt I needed to walk outside. I also began reading books by Katy Bowman on the importance of moving your body. One weekend day, I decided to drive to Williamstown, park my car, and just start walking across the state. I walked on weekends from June to September from Williamstown, which is in the northwest corner of the state, to Provincetown, in the southeast corner. It was a 272-mile walk.

Johnston: On that first long walk in Massachusetts, I walked by an African American cemetery called Parting Ways. It had been a settlement for Black free men and buried in the cemetery were Black soldiers who served in the American Revolutionary War. I was so moved by that story. And that got me to thinking about there are so many more African American historic trails. I was seeing our role in American history in all these different places. They were spread out over large geographic areas. Now I’m working on compiling a book of African American historic trails across the country. I also often say that I walk to ‘put the movement’ back into the civil rights movement.

Harris: It’s a symbol of freedom. While folks are sitting around their Christmas trees and opening presents, we want to realize the sacrifices of the ancestors.