Freelance photographer Jeffrey McWhorter tackled the sprawling and diverse city of Dallas on foot last year, walking 52.44 miles over 35 hours and 50 minutes, meeting more than 200 people along the way.
McWhorter wrote about what he learned about Dallas and the folks who live here in a story for Texas Monthly, "What I Found When I Tried to Walk Across Dallas in a Day" and joined KERA's Ron Corning to talk about his experience.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You originally set out to do this in 24 hours. It took a little longer. What happened?
The way it started was, I was sitting at my computer one day looking at the funky outline of the city of Dallas and I drew an 'As the Crow Flies' line from the very northernmost point to the very southernmost point, which was about 28 miles. When I saw that, I thought, 'I bet I could walk that in one day.' So that was the original plan.
Two things [happened]. I didn't walk as the crow flies — I walked in a meandering path, roughly south to north, but winding — and I stopped and talked to a lot of people and took a lot of photos. So it ended up taking a bit longer than I had originally planned.
How friendly were people?
Generally very friendly. As a journalist, when you approach people frequently on the street and talk to them and photograph them, you get used to reading people. If they're like, 'Today's not the day, leave me alone,' that's fine, I'll move on. But I find, in general, people are interested to be photographed.
And that was one of the intentions of the project, was just to acknowledge the humanity and the dignity of people in their everyday lives. I think when people see that and see that you're genuine in your approach, they're generally willing to talk to you and be photographed.
Were you more connected to some of the socioeconomic disparities in communities because you were walking through it as opposed to driving by it or around it?
One thing that I definitely noticed was the difference in the details. Walking through the heart of South Dallas, you encounter a lot of very broken sidewalks and buildings that are in disrepair. Of course, walking though Highland Park, every little blade of grass is exactly where it's supposed to be, generally speaking.
Although I did have one unique encounter. I was walking literally right outside the fence of Jerry Jones' estate on Preston Road and I took a picture of a squirrel with its guts splattered all over the street at my feet. That was just kind of an interesting moment of, you know even the uglier, grittier parts of the street exist no matter where you are, I guess, in some sense.
I know you had casual conversations, but did you find yourself having a deeper conversation than you expected with anyone along the way, and what did you learn?
There's one that stands out in particular. This is in North Dallas, I was traveling north of Beltline, south of Arapaho, and there was one of those large, generally low-income apartment complexes that often sits on the outskirts of a comparatively nicer neighborhood. I could hear, coming from within the apartment complex, the sounds of swimming pool fun going on. So I walked in and sure enough, there was a small swimming pool in the middle of the complex. It was probably 10 Latino kids in the swimming pool and maybe four Latino adults sitting on the side.
There was really one person in the whole group that spoke English, which was a boy named Christopher who was 16 years old. He was a student at J.J. Pierce High School. He and his dad were sitting on pool chairs and I sat and talked to Christopher for quite a while.
Then he said, you know, 'We don't get out much' and he said, 'We come here to the pool a lot in the complex because it's free, and we have to keep my sister occupied.' His little sister, 5 year old Daniela, was in the pool. I was like, 'Well, why would you have to keep your sister occupied?' He said our mom was detained by ICE about eight days ago.
And this was in May of last year, just as ICE operations are getting underway in earnest.
That's right.
In the article, you say that meeting neighbors was a simple expression of love, and that really struck me because I feel like that may be missing in most of our interactions. We're not really moving forward in the world with that top of mind.
I love the city and I love its people. Every one of those encounters was another human being who made time and space in their day for me, a stranger, and they didn't owe that to me.
I think that's very important as journalists — that when we approach strangers, we do so respectfully, without any sense of entitlement to their life, their story. If they don't want to talk to me, they don't want to be photographed, that's fine. I'll move on.
But those that did, those experiences were deeply moving to me — the trust placed, the trust extended. I think that's where community is truly built and there's something about walking in a place that allows you to do that in a way that really can't be done in any other way.
Ron Corning is the host of KERA's forthcoming talk show, NTX Now. Got a tip? Email Ron at rcorning@kera.org.
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