Petersburg man raises money for King memorial

At noon yesterday, Carl Winfield stopped for a water break, still about 31 miles from Fredericksburg.

Wearing hiking boots, a backpack and a heavy coat, the 60-year-old Petersburg man walked cheerfully -- sometimes singing gospel hymns along U.S. 1 near Ashland.

Along the way, he said, he stopped to rest and pray at a church, where a passer-by was so excited to hear what he was doing that she brought her two sons to meet him.

"It was a blessing," Winfield said after checking into a Fredericksburg motel last night around 7.

At sunrise today, he plans to con tinue his trek, stopping next in Alexandria on his way to Washington by Thursday.

Winfield is walking to raise money for the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation and the $120 million memorial planned for the National Mall in honor of the civil-rights leader.

Walking the route this week has additional meaning to Winfield and his cause. He is marching on the week of King's birthday, which is Thursday, and within days of the inauguration of Barack Obama, the first African-American to be elected president.

"It was one of the things Dr. King dreamed of," Winfield said. "This is the result of the movement."

Winfield also wants to make a longtime dream come true, he said.

In 1968, as a civil-rights coordinator with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he helped organize a march from Petersburg to Washington that King was to attend. The march was canceled after King's assassination, Winfield recalled.

"I wanted to finish this journey," he said. "It was something I wanted to do since 1968."

Winfield hopes to stay for Obama's inauguration but said the main goal of his walk is to help raise money to honor King.

"I know these are tough economic times, but I am asking everybody now to send one dollar," he said.

The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation has raised about $102 million for the $120 million project, said Trudy Byrd, the foundation's public-relations manager.

The King monument will be on about 4 acres on the National Mall, near the Jefferson Memorial and Lincoln Memorial. It tentatively is scheduled to open next year. Byrd praised Winfield's fundraising effort.

Winfield, who walked 48 miles from Petersburg to Ashland on Sunday, said he is physically prepared to finish the more than 130-mile trip. He works outside during the winter, removing transformers and other electrical equipment, and walks for pleasure at least 6 miles each day.

Yesterday as he walked, his cousin Bernard Coleman and family friend James Bonner stopped to check on him. He just had passed Ashland.

"We were wondering how far he had made it," said Coleman, pastor at Mount Level Baptist Church in Dinwiddie County.

"We wanted to come to encourage him," he said. "I am amazed that he has taken on this challenge at age 60. . . . I am pretty impressed and so proud."

The men talked briefly. Then they held hands and said a short prayer for Winfield.

Winfield smiled, looked north, and started walking again.

Contact Luz Lazo at (804) 649-6058 or .