It was an overcast Saturday, November 3. We started to walk across the City of Memphis in the early morning. We passed flyers to residents and shops along the road and briefly told them about the persecution happening in China.

About noontime we stopped by a park and sent forth righteous thoughts there. After we finished, the sun came out. After lunch, more practitioners joined the walk. We held signs reading "SOS Walk Across America Washington to Los Angeles," "Falun Dafa," and "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." Many people passing by showed their support.

In the evening we reached the Memphis Martin Luther King Museum where the human rights activist was assassinated. There were many visitors and we gave out all the flyers on hand and clarified the truth to them.

At about 5 pm, the museum was closed. We lined up along the sidewalk and sent forth righteous thoughts. The visitors coming out of the museum all saw our banners.

The next day, two Missouri practitioners joined the walking team. We were going to pass the longest bridge in the U.S. When we arrived at the bridge, two policewomen were guarding the bridge and they informed us that we were not allowed to walk on the bridge and had to drive. It seemed there was no room for negotiation so we just drove over the bridge. We noticed that there was a parallel bridge for walking. Upon arriving at the other end of the bridge, David felt it was not right, "We have walked this far and never missed one step. Now at the longest bridge and the longest river in the US, we drove over the bridge. Actually we could have walked over the bridge." So he insisted on returning and re-walking over the bridge. When he walked over the bridge, a police officer was waiting for us at the other end. The policeman smiled and asked, "What are you doing? We received phone calls and people are worried about your safety." We explained to him the SOS! Urgent Rescue of Falun Gong Practitioners Persecuted in China campaign. He kindly wished us good luck.

Check out the walking team's daily progress at

http://www.sos-earthwalk.net/route_DC_LA.htm

Posting date: 11/9/2001
Original article date: 11/9/2001
Category: Falun Dafa Worldwide
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2001/11/8/19254.html

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