Howard Bankhead is a blog writer for the African-American Golfers Digest. In 2018, Mayor Tommy Battle of the City of Huntsville proclaimed September 2 as Howard Bankhead Day. In 2023, Bankhead was inducted into the African American Golfers Hall of Fame.
Peace-walking monks entered Alabama this week, greeted warmly by communities along their route—and I can’t stop watching the videos.
Buddhist monks on a 2,300-mile walk for peace across the United States arrived in our state, and the scenes of welcome and kindness have genuinely moved me. From the photos and videos, I was especially struck by the positive responses from everyday Alabamians. Given the constant negative political noise that permeates our news and social media, I never imagined seeing such an outpouring of love, respect, and hospitality from our fellow citizens.
Watching people welcome these monks—people who may look, worship, and live differently from them—has been both encouraging and powerful. It has given me a renewed sense of hope for our people and our state.
In recent years and days, we have heard political rhetoric warning of Muslims “invading” our country, invoking the so-called “Great Replacement Theory,” and dehumanizing people in America’s inner cities. For clarity, the Great Replacement Theory is a white nationalist conspiracy theory that falsely claims white populations in the U.S. and Europe are being deliberately replaced by non-white people through immigration, birth rates, and multicultural policies. Disturbingly, variations of this idea have been echoed by individuals seeking leadership positions—even here in Alabama.
With that kind of rhetoric coming from political leaders across parties, I honestly wondered how these monks would be received as they walked through our state. Alabama is often labeled one of the reddest of red states, and I’ll admit—I did not expect to see citizens and even law enforcement officers warmly welcoming people so different from themselves.
As I write this, I realize how deeply the negative political climate has affected my own outlook. I consider myself a positive person—those who know me would call me an “internal optimist.” Yet seeing these monks on their peaceful mission, and witnessing the kindness shown to them, has helped restore my hope in humanity and in our fellow Alabamians.
I would have given anything to see them in person—or even walk alongside them for a mile—as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, a place so deeply tied to the history of justice, courage and nonviolence.
One of the walk’s leaders, the Rev. Nguyen, vice president of the monks’ Fort Worth temple, said it best at the start of their journey:
“Let us walk not with hurry, but with awareness. Let us walk with open hearts, with respect for every life, every path, every faith. May every footprint we leave behind bloom into flowers of peace, so that wherever these steps have touched the earth, there remains a quiet fragrance of loving kindness.”
For a moment in time, these monks reminded us who we can be—and who we still are—when fear gives way to compassion.
