Benefit concert to raise funds for Longest Walk II

SAN FRANCISCO - Dennis Banks, Floyd ''Red Crow'' Westerman, Kris Kristofferson and Peter Coyote will participate in a benefit concert, ''Music for Mother Earth,'' Nov. 3 at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium. The event will bring together American Indian leaders and high-profile celebrities with the aim to raise funds and awareness for the Longest Walk II: A Walk Across America for the Environment, to take place in 2008.

The Longest Walk II is a 4,400-mile journey that will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the original Longest Walk, which took place in 1978, and work to bring attention to today's critical environmental issues.

The Longest Walk II will begin in San Francisco in February 2008 and end in Washington, D.C., in July 2008. The Longest Walk II is being led by American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis Banks. That event successfully brought attention to 11 legislative bills introduced in the 95th U.S. Congress that would have abrogated treaties that protected remaining Native sovereignty. All 11 bills were defeated in Congress.

Similar to 1978, The Longest Walk II is a peaceful, spiritual effort to engage with the public about the disharmony of the environment by leading an effort to clean up communities. The Clean Up America campaign is a national effort taken up by Longest Walk participants to clean up our country's highways and roads by collecting debris found along the route. This monumental task will engage walkers in a global effort at a grass-roots level to promote harmony with the environment. Participants will carry specially marked trash bags to separate the collected refuse into trash bins and recycling bins. A rotating team of walkers will pick up trash along the way with trash pokers.

The walk is a grass-roots effort to recognize the success of the 1978 Longest Walk, which effectively halted legislation that might have had devastating effects on the tribes' sovereignty while cleaning up America mile by mile, village to village, state to state, shore to shore en route to Washington, D.C.

For information on The Longest Walk II, visit www.longestwalk.org. For more information about the concert, visit www.redhotpromotions.com.