My walk across America is over, but my mission for South Side kids is not

As I write this, I am sitting in stillness for the first time in a while. I’ve been walking across America for nearly 200 days, and I admit I’m itching to get back onto the open road. I loved the walk — meeting new people, seeing the hidden corners of America, and learning her stories.

But the doctors have made it plain that I cannot walk anymore. When I had my first surgery to remove a painful growth called a pyogenic granuloma from my heel, I thought I was good to go. However, that growth came back with a vengeance in the same spot and had to be removed again. To keep pushing would mean risking profound damage to my foot.

The road to Los Angeles, which began on Sept. 1, 2025, in New York City, is a journey I will not finish on foot. Many of you have walked every step of this with me in spirit, and my heart is broken.

I remember standing in Times Square on the first day, looking up at those skyscrapers, and thinking about how people built this city out of nothing. The people doing the building often came from other lands and had far fewer resources. But they had ingenuity, will, and resilience, and I thought about how the children on the South Side must be brought up in this same spirit. Anything is possible with commitment, grit, and the unwavering will never to quit.

FROM A CHICAGO ROOFTOP TO 3,000-MILE JOURNEY, HERE’S HOW I’M FIGHTING TO RESTORE AMERICA’S SOUL

I put on my shoes, and I started walking.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary times of my life.

I am grateful beyond words for every dollar, every prayer, every person who walked a city leg with me, shared a post or gave what they could.

I will never forget the time we got a horse-and-buggy ride from the Amish woman in Pennsylvania who opened her home to us. Or the pain I felt when I spoke of God with drug addicts in Philly’s open-air drug markets. The wide range of humanity that I encountered showed me the best and worst of America, but what struck me was that even when it was bad, even when a drug addict was telling me that God was no match for the hit, there was always some hope. That hope is what makes America what she is.

WHERE ADDICTS IN PHILADELPHIA BOW TO TRANQ, I SAW WHY GOD HASN’T GIVEN UP ON AMERICA YET

One of the more striking moments was when I found myself walking on the old slave trail in Richmond, Virginia, the very path that Africans were marched in chains toward the auction block. I felt the weight of ghosts and the presence of grace at the same time. I prayed. And when I left that trail, I was struck with the feeling that far too many of our children are on a predestined path to poverty and violence, and it is that path that needs to be destroyed.

I walked into small towns, roadside diners and McDonald’s across the Deep South and stopped to talk to strangers. Media folks would call them ordinary, but I discovered they were anything but. Each one of them was an individual with their own dreams, successes, failures, and beliefs. Not one of them asked about party lines or protest hashtags. They talked about hope and faith. They talked about their kids’ futures, the price of feed, their churches and their communities.

One man in Alabama told me about his son, who had just gotten out of prison and was looking for work. A grandmother in Mississippi told me about raising four grandchildren whose parents couldn’t raise them. A truck driver somewhere in Louisiana pulled over just to hand me a bottle of cold water and say, “Pastor, I’m praying for you.” He drove off before I could get his name. Moments like these never leave you.

MY WALK ACROSS AMERICA IS A LESSON IN GRATITUDE AND GIVING THANKS

Through all those months, the blisters on my feet reminded me of the cost. But the conversations healed something far deeper. I kept thinking: We are not nearly as divided as they want us to believe. The elites and the politicians earn their bread and butter by manufacturing dissent and conflict among us. But out on those roads, I found something different. I found an America that is still working.

Then, on Day 191, I found myself in a hospital exam room. The doctors told me the growth had returned. The first surgery hadn’t held. They scheduled a second surgery. I sat quietly in that room for a long time, thinking about Times Square and the thousands of miles still ahead. I wrote that night that I was emotionally broken. That was the truth. I had spent every reserve — physical, spiritual and emotional — that I brought to that road. I did it all so that the kids on the South Side might have a better life. There was nothing left in the tank that I had put there myself.

After the second surgery, the verdict became final: The physical walk is over. My body simply will not allow it.

I’VE SEEN THE BODIES ON MY BLOCK — AND I KNOW WHAT REALLY STOPS THE KILLING

We came so far. We raised just over $4 million for the Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center on Chicago’s South Side, the 90,000-square-foot facility that will house job training, counseling, a school, and more for young people who have never had anything like it in their neighborhood. Our goal has always been simple: Put opportunity within reach of every child. It’s up to them to take advantage of it, and when they do seize that initiative, we will support them.

I am grateful beyond words for every dollar, every prayer, every person who walked a city leg with me, shared a post or gave what they could.

But we set out to raise $25 million. And we are still short.

A BOLD MOVE TO RESCUE CHICAGO’S YOUTH FROM LEFTIST DEPENDENCY

Those children on the South Side do not get a pause button for the circumstances they were born into. The need does not rest while I recover.

So here is what I have learned from this road, and from sitting with the weight of what it cost me: Real movements are never meant to rest on one person. Whether it was that Amish woman, the drug addict or the truck driver, the one thing that they all had in common was that they had the help of their fellow Americans. That’s what gives America her greatness. I know this to be true.

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When I was on the rooftop in 2011, freezing through the Chicago winter to raise money to tear down a crime-infested motel — the same spot where we’re building today’s community center — people asked me how I could stand it. But I never lost faith. I could stand the cold and the pressure because I knew I wasn’t standing alone. And I wasn’t. We raised enough to buy and tear down that motel. Now, we have a building of possibility and opportunity rising in that very same spot.

So, even though my body is unable to continue the walk, my spirit refuses to give up. I know my mission is not my walk. The mission is the children. The mission is the center. The mission is what happens when a young man from O-Block, once the most violent block in the country, discovers that his life has direction and value, and that somebody showed up for him.

So I ask you to join me on this mission. We all want a better America. We don’t have all the answers. But we know that there must be opportunities for all. We know that everyone deserves an equal shot at the American dream. The rest is up to them. But we must create that equality of opportunity.

So, although I may not be able to walk, I hope you will join me in this difficult work of reversing the damage that post-’60s liberalism did to our communities. I hope you will join us in giving meaning and opportunity to the lives of these young people who happened to be born into this ZIP code. And I hope you know that you matter more than you will ever know, and we need you to build a better America.

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