Peace Corps Giant Harris Wofford and two of his grandsons, age twelve, have set forth on a six-week trip around the world and are now in China and Mongolia
Dispatches from the Road: Harris Wofford's Travel Journal--August 17, 2004
Three hours after the June meeting of the board of America’s Promise—The Alliance for Youth, two of my grandsons, age twelve, and I set forth on a six-week trip around the world. This is a right of passage each of my five grandchildren are offered in honor of the six months trip around the world I took with my grandmother when I was turning twelve.
Harris Wofford
Climbing up to the Great Wall of China on a remote trail all to ourselves, Ben Wofford remonstrated about being called “tourists” during visits to ancient temples and historic sites. “We’re not tourists,” he said. “We’re future saviors of the planet traveling the world for enlightenment.”
Sixty-six years ago I don’t think I could have put it that well. Nor are they exactly the watchwords for the book of stories I am now writing as an elder of the tribe. But I did recognize then – as I do now – that our planet does indeed need saving.
In Rome, November 1937, we heard Mussolini, thundering from his balcony, take Italy out of the League of Nations, in defiance of the League’s condemnation of his conquest of Ethiopia. Into the night we watched the angry Fascist torch-light march pass by our English hotel.
Christmas Eve in Bethlehem, we huddled in the Church of the Nativity, as Arabs and Jews exchanged gunfire. In Bombay, we watched Mahatma Gandhi walk to a mass prayer meeting on the seashore.
In the deserted Chinese city of Shanghai, demolished by Japanese bombs, we had a premonition of what the Hitler-led axis of evil was soon to do to much of Western civilization. We should have been ashamed of ourselves for joining other tourists in purchasing Japanese looting permits to forage in the ruins. Others came out of the tea house we looted with china and silver, while I proudly hauled forth a four-foot stuffed ostrich, which I finally threw overboard in Yokohama.
The boy is father to the man, and that whole adventure helped shape my life in many ways, including an early sense of responsibility for the world at home and abroad. Working with General Colin Powell, Ray Chambers, Gregg Petersmeyer, and others to organize the Summit of all the living Presidents in Philadelphia in 1997 – and during these last years serving as co-chair, with Alma Powell, of America’s Promise – has given me an extraordinary opportunity to exercise some of that responsibility.
One of the planet’s most urgent and important problems is the need of hundreds of millions of young people around the world to secure the fundamental resources for successful lives that we are committed to providing for American children and youth.
In China and Mongolia, our first two stops, we heard about – and saw signs of – the great needs of children of poor villagers who have come to the cities where neither housing nor schools nor social services are ready for them. “Youth development” is a major focus for the Peace Corps teams in both countries.
In Darkhan, the second largest city in Mongolia, one of the Peace Corps volunteers, serving his third year, had first been an AmeriCorps member in St. Louis, and was well aware of the Five Promises made to American youth in Philadelphia. He and other Peace Corps volunteers were working to fulfill those promises in the different challenges of Asia.
As I step down as co-chair of our American campaign for children and youth, I salute from afar all those who are carrying the torch lit at Philadelphia, and then lit in communities around the country. Soon, I'll return to focus on my book-in-the-making – and to be on call as a devoted, continuing member of the board.
With Alma Powell as chair, with the strong engagement of our board and its new executive committee chaired by Jean Case, with Gregg Petersmeyer’s dedicated interim leadership, and with an emerging strategy for the next stage, America’s Promise—The Alliance for Youth is poised for its vital role in forging the larger Alliance needed to fulfill the promise for every young person in America.
