40 miles for 40 acres: Maryland minister walks from Brunswick to Augusta for reparations

RICHMOND —A little more than halfway through his trek in Maine on Tuesday, the Rev. Dr. Robert Turner already knew the walk would be physically and mentally taxing.

“The walks are always long. It’s never a walk where I’m just at the end doing cartwheels. My body is sore. But it’s also a spiritual moment for me. I reflect, I meditate. It’s like a pilgrimage. But it’s also a call to action,” Turner explained.

Turner, who is the pastor at the Empowerment Temple AME Church in Baltimore, was walking about 38 miles from Brunswick to Augusta to advocate for reparations to the descendants of enslaved Africans, a continuation of his previous initiative 40 Miles for 40 Acres, where he walked from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., each month to highlight the broken promise of Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s 40 acres and a mule.

Turner started out at the John Brown Russworm African American Center in Brunswick at 5 a.m., traveling north through Topsham along the Kennebec River, and he expected to reach the State Capitol in Augusta around 5:40 p.m. Outside of Richmond, he walked under a cloudless sky with wind blowing off the river through the rolling roads, holding a sign that read “REPARATIONS NOW” and sporting a reflective orange-and-yellow jacket.

Tuesday’s walk held additional significance. It falls on the 185th anniversary of Maine’s first Colored Convention, the 1841 gathering where African Americans met in Portland to discuss abolition and racial equality across Maine. Turner dedicated his walk to the late Gerald E. Talbot, Maine’s first Black legislator and a civil rights advocate.

“You have so much that has happened here that needs repair from, and the evidence of the suffering is still being felt on Oct. 6, 2026,” Turner said.

Turner cited historical events of oppression and racism in Maine, such as the state’s involvement with the slave trade and the history of Malaga Island. He spoke about continued racial disparities in the state, where Black people are more likely to be incarcerated, underhoused and under the poverty line.

After moving from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Baltimore in 2021, he decided to walk the 42.9 miles to Washington, D.C., to call for reparations. Since then, he has done that walk 40 times, once every month, and then expanded the cause to a national level with walks in Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia. Maine is his ninth state and he plans to walk in all 50.

“I’ve walked in the ice, the snow, the rain, the thunderstorms, you name it, I’ve walked. I’ve never postponed a walk due to weather,” he said. “So I’ve walked in snowstorms, I’ve walked in weather advisories … I’ve walked when cities were closed down. God has kept me these 49 times. I’ve slipped, but I’ve never fallen.”

Turner’s choice to start his walk in Brunswick holds additional historical significance, being the place where Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the anti-slavery novel. John Brown Russwurm was one of the first Black college graduates in the United States, graduating from Bowdoin College in 1826; he eventually helped found the nation’s first Black newspaper.

Walking up Route 24 outside of Richmond, Turner said he’d received both positive and negative reactions. Some responded enthusiastically to the cause. One woman stopped him alongside the road to question why he is not fighting for other groups such as Irish Americans.

“I’m not against anybody who is suffering from getting reparations,” he said.

Turner said his plan, when he reached Augusta, was to lay a wreath of 400 roses down on the state capital to represent 400 years of oppression. He planned to pray at the State Capitol, and read Chapter 61 from the Book of Isaiah in the Bible, which he reads at the end of every walk.

“Then I leave. I leave physically, but spiritually praying and politically advocating through petitions, through emails, through phone calls for repair being done in Maine,” he said.

His next state to walk is South Carolina. He plans to organize his future walks by finding historical dates in the state he will be walking in, hopefully doing the northern states in the summer and the southern states in the winter. He urges each state he walks through to repair the damage that has been done in history.

“I think Maine, by doing reparations, which is the truest form of justice that America has never seen, can help lead the nation. … Maine was one of the first states to abolish slavery,” Turner said. “Maine could also lead the nation as one of the first states to issue reparations.”