Chapter 2 - Joan Southgate & Restore Cleveland Hope

GENROZT - a gracious act that creates a joyful ache every time it is remembered

OPENING

It's not often a middle-aged white guy gets to fall in love with a 72 year-old black grandmother. I'm the white guy; she is Joan Evelyn Southgate.

Our short story is this: on a sunny spring afternoon in 2002, son #2 Peter and I met up with the singular Joan Evelyn on her 519-mile walk - 10 miles per day, sleeping in stranger's homes - following the Underground Railroad (URR) path from Kentucky to Canada with a mission to change our world.

But it's the long version you'll want to hear.


CLOSING

On a recent summer afternoon, Peter - a rising junior at The Ohio State University - and I rolled up to Joan's house with Emmett and son #4 Liam, in tow. After a meal surrounded by those dining room quotes, we strolled through the cultural gardens, up the hills Joan used to train for her walk, and then back to Joan's kitchen table.

"What I still can't quite grasp is that ten years later something is still happening," she began. "I thought I was on a journey that had a beginning and an end ... but it never stopped!" One of her fondest memories of a decade back is being greeted by that gym filled with children wearing a photo of her. And there at Joan's kitchen table Peter, now six-foot-three, just smiled and smiled.