In his determined style, environmentalist John Francis juggles a busy speaking schedule at schools, colleges and Earth-friendly conferences.
He’s in such demand in large part because from 1973 to 1990, Francis stubbornly kept a vow of silence as a protest against pollution. He also swore off motor vehicles and walked wherever he went.
Francis engaged the modern culture he sought to change. A five-string banjo strung across his back, looking like a bearded roustabout from a Woody Guthrie anthem, he hiked across the country. He worked odd jobs to pay his bills and even taught classes without talking.
He stopped along the way to get bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, all in science and related environmental studies. He wore out 100 pairs of shoes.
Some people, including his family, questioned his sanity. Still, Francis slowly gained national notice. He became the subject of hundreds of newspaper and TV stories in the communities he passed through. He was asked to give silent speeches in many towns.
Never compromising, he communicated in a colorful flurry of pantomime, eye contact, scrawled notes, poems, watercolors and banjo tunes.
Now he is 60, and wherever he goes, people ask about The Journey. Was he haunted by his own thoughts? How hard was it to begin speaking again after all those years?
“The first thing people want to know is, `How did you make a living?'” he said. “They’ll say, `You talked out loud to yourself, right?’ But I never did that.”
People often ask if he went mute to shut the world out. But that wasn’t the goal at all.
In 1972, incensed by the havoc caused by an oil spill in San Francisco Bay, Francis decided to give up his “60-mile-an-hour habit.” He lived in Marin County and began walking everywhere. At the start, Francis wasn’t entirely sure what he was trying to accomplish. He hoped people would follow his lead in forgoing motor vehicles, but no one did.
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Then one day he stopped talking.
“The silence was really meant to be for one day–as well as a gift to my community because I felt I talked too much–not to prove anything,” he said. “As it went on, I realized that the vow of silence was really a gift to myself.”
As Francis notes in a self-published book he wrote about his travels, even his father questioned his so-called word fast.
“Things are difficult enough for black folks without you tying a stone around your neck,” Francis’ book relates his father, John, saying. “What do you think you’re doing? Man, just stop this foolishness and start driving and saying something, because right now you ain’t saying anything.”
Francis begins odyssey
Still, his choice launched Francis on an odyssey. In 1983, he began what he envisioned would be a silent one-man walk around the world. He communicated with a mix of fluttering hands, bobbing, nodding and facial expressions.
Some people he met disdained him as another misguided wanderer looking for attention. Others offered him food and shelter. When money ran low, he worked odd jobs and sold paintings and watercolors he had drawn on his travels. He played his banjo for handouts.
Along the way, he educated himself. He applied for scholarships and other funding. He studied for his bachelor’s degree in general studies at Southern Oregon State College.
Later, while earning his master’s in environmental studies at the University of Montana, Francis taught classes without talking. He earned a doctorate at the University of Wisconsin studying the societal costs of oil spills and their cleanup.
His classes were often a frustrating exercise in charades. “Sometimes, what the class thought I was saying wasn’t what I meant,” he said. “But what we finally agreed upon was better than what I meant.”
Meanwhile, Francis’ idea of “the environment” changed. “At first it was all about oil pollution, loss of habitat, cutting down trees,” he said. “It evolved into a deeper meaning: how humans treat each other when they meet, opening dialogues so we can talk about things like saving the Earth.”
On each birthday, Francis asked: Did his vow still feel right? Should he start talking ?
He chose Earth Day 1990 to break his silence. The night before, he did his last silent interview, appearing on “The Charlie Rose Show” on PBS.
Then came the news conference in a Washington, D.C., hotel, where he uttered his first purposeful sentence in 17 years: “Thank you for being here.”
As his book, “Planetwalker: How to Change Your World One Step at a Time,” describes: “The words are almost inaudible, the voice unrecognizable. I turn to see where the words have come from. There is no one standing behind me. I have spoken them. I wait for the lightning to strike, but it does not.”
The day after the news conference, Francis was hit by a car in Washington, suffering a shoulder injury. But he stuck to his no-vehicle vow and talked an ambulance crew into letting him walk to the hospital.
Keeps spreading message
His life changed in unexpected ways when he re-entered the speaking realm.
He was named a goodwill ambassador for the UN Environment Program. The U.S. Coast Guard hired him to help write oil spill regulations after the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.
After that job, Francis kept walking. He crossed parts of Cuba and South America, reaching his starting point by sailboat.
One day in Venezuela, he had an epiphany that prompted him to ride in motor vehicles again after 22 years. It came while passing a penitentiary.
“I realized I had put myself in this box, this prison,” he said, “and that I had to let myself out.”
Today, Francis drives a hybrid car around Point Reyes Station, where he lives and keeps an office.
His parents are dead. He’s the father of two young sons.
And at home, Francis starts each day with a 4-mile walk, a solitary figure who still prefers navigating life at the contemplative speed of 3 m.p.h.
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