They walked for 381 days.

It wasn't to obey doctor's orders or to challenge the Appalachian Trail or to settle the West or to trim a waistline. This pedestrian accomplishment reached for and attained higher goals than even those.

For over a year, thousands of people chose to walk (and bike and carpool) to go about their daily business. WE GO has long touted how walking improves health, reduces stress, embraces the environment and builds community relations. During those 381 days in 1955-56 it also helped nurture equality and correct one of the most heinous wrongs in American history.

An unlikely, yet nearly perfect, heroine was the impetus when she simply allowed herself to be arrested for breaking an Alabama law. In 1955, African Americans boarded city busses at the back, rode there and where directed to stand (or even get off the bus) if the front white section was full. Fifty years hence such a ridiculous and insulting law seems incomprehensible, but it was harsh reality in 1955 Montgomery.

Mrs. Rosa Parks, a quiet, intelligent, bespectacled and inspiringly dignified seamstress, reached her level of endurance and refused to stand to accommodate a man of lighter pigmentation. Her "no" ignited the most successful non-violent civil protest this country has experienced. It began on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama and traveled to the Supreme Court.

In a whirlwind of community cohesion, organization and indefatigable will, black people and their white supporters boycotted the Montgomery busses. They walked to school and work and church, sometimes ten miles a day.

Word was spread through churches and Montgomery's one black radio station where Ace Anderson played walking songs and announced that day's carpooling stations. Shoes were donated from around the country. Truckloads of used bicycles arrived so men could get to work. Churches collected donations to buy automobiles for carpooling. White women drove their black maids to and from work, often to the consternation of their husbands. Young men safely escorted young women home.

They walked in the rain, the heat and through what Alabama defines as winter. They walked and endured the segregationist's anger, bombings and death threats. They walked until the Montgomery bus system was almost bankrupt and the Supreme Court finally ruled that segregation was illegal.

They walked. And they won.

Brenda Berstler is the founder of the Walking Example Group (WE-GO) a non-profit organization encouraging walking and walkable communities. Visit their website at www.we-go.org.