A group of Buddhist Monks on a 2,300-mile Walk For Peace made a notable stop through two Virginia HBCUs from Jan. 31 through Feb. 2, turning campus spaces into places for reflection, conversation, and community healing.
On Saturday, Jan. 31, Virginia State University hosted 19 monks from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center, a Buddhist center based in Fort Worth. The monks are walking from Texas toward The White House as part of a highly publicized pilgrimage meant to promote unity, compassion, and national healing.
According to Virginia State, the group arrived on Day 98 of the journey and spent the night on campus. Students and members of the Trojan community were able to engage with the visitors during an evening program in the Black Box Theatre inside the Alfred W. Harris Academic Commons. The gathering wasn’t open to the public, but students had the chance to hear directly from the monks—and to share a cultural moment of their own, as the Trojan Explosion Marching Band performed during the visit.
The stop also highlighted the scale of the effort behind the scenes. Virginia State reported that the monks traveled with an extended support team of more than 50 volunteers. The monks slept overnight in a gymnasium within the Academic Commons while support staff used other parts of the building, and a medical treatment room was set up to assist the group during their rest period.
University officials said the visit came together quickly. The school received confirmation early Saturday morning that the monks would be staying at the campus, requiring swift coordination from multiple departments. Eldon Burton, an assistant vice president at the university, framed the overnight stay as consistent with the institution’s values of community and dialogue.
Monks stop at Virginia Union
From there, the Walk continued north into the Richmond area, where the journey drew massive crowds and heightened media attention. The Washington Post reported that thousands gathered in Richmond—with the mayor’s office estimating about 10,000 people lining parts of the route—as the monks passed through on Day 100 of the walk.
The same report noted that Abigail Spanberger and Richmond Mayor Danny Avula were among the public officials welcoming the group during events near City Hall. An Axios photo report similarly described Richmond as one of the largest public receptions the group had seen in Virginia so far, underscoring how the Walk has become a civic moment as much as a spiritual one.
On Feb. 2, the monks’ Virginia HBCU route included Virginia Union University, where a campus video recap described blessings, teachings, and a Q&A session focused on inner peace, mindfulness practices, and the meaning behind the monks’ simple lifestyle and attire. The discussion emphasized that peace begins within the mind—an idea the monks returned to repeatedly while describing the discipline of mindfulness and how they carry their message through long days of walking.
The larger context: the Walk is described as roughly 2,300 miles and scheduled to conclude in Washington, D.C. in early February, with supporters increasingly turning out in large numbers along the route.