7th generation to change world?

Longest Walk II embarks with prayersThis year, about 300 marchers will begin walking through states including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia from two separate routes, northern and southern. Their goal is to deliver awareness about environmental issues like global warming and unresolved Indian concerns including the desecration of sacred sites and burial grounds, and the return of ancestral remains and sacred objects from institutions including the University of California-Berkeley.

Walkers will pick up trash along the road throughout the 5-month-long journey, scheduled to end July 11.

"The calling is so great, I would sacrifice anything for it," said Lupita Torres, 26, whose parents are from Mexico. Torres is a regular figure at California's only tribal college, Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University, whose premise was to unite Natives from both sides of the U.S. /Mexico border. The school is one of many stops where marchers will eat and rest.

"This is a chance to be part of history," she said. "This seventh generation has to change the world, we don't have a choice. Our consumption concerns me, so many people are affected by uranium mining, coal mining--all those things are archaic. We should be looking at solar, wind. How can you keep selling the land and water? Those things are sacred. But a lot of people don't know that."