Steps to unity: Interfaith groups walk for peace, honor late activists

AMHERST — An 8.2-mile interfaith peace walk on Monday was just another step in the walkers’ long journey for unity.

Many of the 52 participants who traveled from the Amherst Town Common to Northampton Friends Meeting at 43 Center St. in that city have advocated against war throughout their lifetimes. But unlike the outrage and shock that often fuels political demonstrations against violence, the interfaith groups harnessed the power of love to honor the late activists Paki Wieland and Frances Crowe.

“It’s the mindset of like where you’re coming from. I’m not saying that anger isn’t justified, but the antiwar movement is angry, whereas the peace movement is loving,” said Eric Wasileski, organizer of the walk. “The reason why we’re moving is a little bit different. It looks similar from the outside, but inwardly it’s a completely different place.”

The demonstration was sponsored by 12 religious organizations, including the four institutions that served as stops along Monday’s walking route. After an interfaith service at the Hope Community Church in Amherst, the walkers took a break at Hampshire Mosque and First Congregational Church, both in Hadley. At their final destination at Northampton Friends Meeting, state Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, spoke about the importance of renaming Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day.

Among the different banners and flags for religious congregations or peace movements was a foldable table where people sold blue shirts with the phrase “What would Paki do?” Cate Woolner coined the line after her thoughts wandered back to her old friend whenever she saw injustice on the news.

“I know she’d have a very humanity-oriented, nonviolent and quick response,” Woolner said.

As a longtime Valley activist, Wieland was a core member of peace movements until her death in March. Her local involvement in WesternMass CodePink and the singing group Raging Grannies helped build a strong activist community in western Massachusetts. She learned civil disobedience from her global travels in South America and the Middle East, then implemented the practices within the Valley to protest violent international actions by the United States government and weapons manufacturing companies like L3Harris.

Wieland was close friends with famous antiwar activist Crowe, of Northampton, who died in 2019. A former employee at Bell Labs, Crowe changed careers after the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She ran the American Friends Service Committee out of her basement and co-founded Traprock Peace Center in Deerfield. She remained a strong voice against nuclear development throughout her life.

The walk to remember these influential figures had been planned for July 4, but extreme heat forced the group to reschedule for Indigenous Peoples Day. The new date not only brought temperate autumn weather, but also shifted the political context to the plight of Indigenous tribes.

Before the walk began, Wasileski symbolically washed the Massachusetts state flag, which depicts a “dismembered arm, sword at the ready” over a Native American’s head. He noted that the Latin phrase on the flag means “peace by the sword.”

While introducing themselves to the group, a handful of people expressed their disgust at the imagery on the flag. One person would not even say “Amherst” on Indigenous Peoples Day in protest of Colonial governor Jeffery Amherst and his use of smallpox-infected blankets against the Indigenous population in the Pioneer Valley.

But discontent quickly shifted to a focus on connection. In Hope Community Church, Assistant Pastor Xinef Afriam read a land acknowledgment drafted by the faith leadership for Indigenous Peoples Day 2026. In drawing a connection between the Pocomtuc Nation and the historic Black church’s own story of oppression, Afriam linked both efforts of justice and liberation under one cause.

“What really matters to the people that we’re speaking on behalf of, is that you actually embrace them at all times and not just in these moments,” Afriam said.

Benigno Sanchez-Eppler did not walk the full 8 miles, but his journey will not end until he travels back to Cuba in November. The New England Quakers began their relationship with Cuban Quakers in the 1990s and they remain united by faith despite an ongoing 65-year political conflict between Cuba and the United States. Sanchez-Eppler travels to the island every two to three years to translate 18th-century texts, teach Quaker history and offer company to their religious siblings.

“It’s a very infinite kind of commitment for peace,” he said. “It doesn’t feel primarily political, but our Cuban Quakers say in their isolation and in the way that they feel besieged, it’s small but easy-to-feel accompaniment when one of us shows up.”

Loreto Ruiz has walked at least 300 miles with the New England Peace Pagoda. She took her first journey at 14 years old, and returns to the tradition whenever she needs to come home to her community. As a mixed Indigenous person from Chile, Ruiz thinks about building community beyond her current cultural and native roots and extending it to all Indigenous people for the sake of peace. She encourages Valley residents to do the same with their own community members of different classes and races.

“How can we pierce through that and beyond that into a place where people feel more included, which I think is what Northampton is really about,” Ruiz said. “When wartime comes, it’s harder to walk the talk on that.”