#40Miles&AMule Charity Run/Walk to End Homelessness
Striding for Change
The 3.1-mile course along the Atlanta Beltline Westside Trail, which provides a scenic, festive route through westside neighborhoods to Washington Park, with a return route back to Gordon C. White Park. Registration includes a T-shirt. It is open to all.
Starting and finishing at Gordon C. White in the Historic West End Neighborhood of Southwest Atlanta, the “40 miles & A Mule” 5K Charity walk/run is a fun and fitness way to honor the legacy and continue the work of Civil Rights Leaders in Atlanta such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy Sr., John Lewis, Hosea Williams, and many more. The walk/run is one of the many events leading up to the Civil Rights Bus Tour on April 16, 2022, in Birmingham, AL to honor Dr. M.L.
King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.
All proceeds from the event will go to benefit this and other charitable events to assist our community members experiencing homelessness. Relevance of the name “40 Miles & a Mule” – On the weekend of the MLK birthday federal holiday, his actual birthday being January 15th, we begin a celebration of our Civil Rights movement. There were leaders of our community in Atlanta who came today to fight for liberation. Now, on January 16th, 1865, Union General William T. Sherman came down and issued a Special Field Order in Savannah, GA to prescribe 40 acres and a mule to the freed slaves.
This was an idea that resulted from a discussion that General Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton had with 20 leaders of the black community in Savannah. The 40 miles has a significant and symbolic meaning to the York Rite masonic body, Order of Knights Templar. So, for this day of MLK’s birthday, leaders
of the community will go the distance of 40 miles to distribute alms to our community members and assist them in the protection against food insecurities and hunger.