The first time Arthur Blessitt was arrested was as a college student in Greensville, Mississippi. Twenty-three more arrests would follow over the next forty years, including detainments by the KGB, the Spanish Civil Guardia, Nicaraguan guerillas and the I.R.A. No, Arthur Blessitt is not an international super-spy. But he is a man on a mission to carry The Cross.
A mission that has taken him on a 38,102-mile journey across all seven continents, 315 countries, island groups and territories. All on foot. He's traversed blazing deserts, impenetrable jungles and over fifty nations at war. He's survived firing squads, near death beatings and deadly wild animals; dined with kings and presidents, paupers and peasants. He's addressed hundreds of thousands in jam-packed squares and wandered deserted desert highways. The Guinness Book of World Records has dubbed Arthur's journey, "The World's Longest Walk."
Oh, and he's done it all carrying a twelve foot wooden cross.
Arrested for The Cross
You see, Arthur's stints in jail didn't stem from acts of international espionage or even petty theft. In fact, his first arrest came for holding the hand of a black man while praying for him on a street corner in the pre-Civil Rights South. Each subsequent adventure - many of which put the "extreme" feats of Mt. Everest climbers and Tour de France champions to shame - has been driven by the same singular mission. Whether it be commandeering a car and filling it with food and water to aid refugees flooding into Jordan from Kuwait prior to the first Gulf War or carrying the cross through the mine fields and exploding artillery of five fighting armies into besieged West Beirut to pray for peace with Yasser Arafat, Arthur has never let challenging circumstances divert his mission of bringing a message of hope to the world.
His trek through Panama's Darian Gap is a prime example. One week after venturing into one of the most impenetrable jungles in the world, both of Arthur’s travel companions abandoned him for fear of survival. Arthur was left alone to cross the approximately 400 miles of mountains, jungle and swamp – something no one had ever done. Not only did he survive, he forged relationships with indigenous peoples no outsiders had ever made contact with before.
There are almost as many amazing stories as there are places Arthur has walked. Undeterred by his inability to gain access into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Arthur found a Pakistani guide to lead him on a brutal climb into the Hindu Cush Mountains where he crossed the border at the Brunal Pass at 18,200 feet. At one point he was taken at gunpoint by tribal leaders and only spared after explaining he was on a quest to have a "pure heart" just as the followers of Islam are. Another time, Arthur was dragged before a firing squad in the middle of the night in civil war-strewn Nicaragua only to escape through what he can only explain as "miraculous circumstances."
Freed by A Believer
In Uzbekistan, the KGB arrested Arthur, interrogating him for hours before he was finally freed by a captain who secretly told him his mother was a believer. In Burundi, Arthur and his cross went from prisoners in the midst of a military coup to local folk heroes after the disposed president had said the only thing that could remove him from office was the return of Christ himself. Arthur also found himself facing death in Ireland, when IRA gunmen threatened to nail him to his cross if he continued to carry it through their section of Belfast. Perhaps Arthur's most personally moving experience was being beaten by Franco's Civil Guardia for leading a rally of 20,000 people at the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, the very site of the bloody Inquisition some five hundred years before.
Of course, not all of Arthur's adventures have been fraught with trial and tribulation. He was present on the historic day of Israel and Egypt opening their borders, and was literally the very first person to cross as part of his trek through the Sinai. He was also one of the first people to travel into East Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall where he proceeded to lead a march of 300,000 people in the country’s first non-retaliated demonstration against Communism.
Guest of Atheists
Arthur even snuck into Saudi Arabia after finding a secret way across an unguarded section of border and after years of visa denials, he actually received a VIP invitation to North Korea, where he established a travel exchange program allowing Westerners to openly visit the country for the first time. Yet possibly one of Arthur's most poignant and tender moments came when he was turned away from a missionary rest home in Africa. After two months of walking across the continent, he was denied a bed because he didn't have proper missionary credentials, only to be picked up a few miles down the road by an atheist couple who offered him their air-conditioned home for as long as he needed to rest.
To spend any time with Arthur Blessitt is to become enthralled in his stories and adventures. With forty years and every location on earth, they are quite literally endless. Yet unlike most thrill-seekers or world record holders, Arthur's mission has never been about accumulating one amazing exploit after another. It's always been about the people he meets. In fact, it's safe to say that Arthur has met more of them from more different cultures than anyone in history, and in all probability, he's met more people, period, than anyone who has ever lived. To each and every one of them, it has been Arthur's goal to take a symbol that all too often has been associated with judgment, hatred and violence and reinterpret it with a smile and a message of hope. What began as a provocative stunt in the 1960's to get his voice heard in the midst of Hollywood's rabble of Hell's Angels and Hippies, became a calling card to the nations as everywhere that Arthur has gone, people of every race, religion and social status have flocked to meet the man carrying the most recognized symbol in the world...The Cross.
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