San Antonio, Texas, to Maricopa, Arizona, via Amtrak

Jarvis Harris and Joe Foss are telling local audiences about their five-week, 4,600-mile tour of Black historical sites across the United States last fall. For additional insights into their journey and anti-racist work, please visit their website, AcceptingOthers.com. 

Joe: Wow, what a journey this has been. We are now on our final three rail segments that will get us back to Lacey and Tacoma on Amtrak. Having just visited our last Black History Museum in Austin, we are now headed to Maricopa, Arizona, which you may not have heard of.

As we said before, America’s passenger rail system is kind of a shadow of its glory days. So many passenger stops have been eliminated; Phoenix was one of those axed in the 1996 downsizing.

Maricopa is about 35 miles south of Phoenix, but it is a primary passenger rail stop on Amtrak’s Sunset Limited. It is a very small station with service only three days a week. We left San Antonio at 2:45 a.m. and arrived in Maricopa at 9:30 p.m. on a 20-hour trek, so we got some sleep during that portion of our trip.

My daughter Jamie picked us up at the station to take us to Gilbert, Arizona, where three of my four kids live, as we would be staying in the casita on my daughter Emily and her husband Ron’s property.

My wife, Rita, and I frequently spend winters in Arizona, sometimes for several months, and this casita is our winter home when we do that. Such a great lodging location as we are right next to Emily’s home, very close to where our son, Tim, lives and also near our youngest daughter lives with her family.

Having a set winter home has been such a blessing for us. I was excited to introduce Jarvis to our family, whom he had only met briefly about six years ago. This trip allowed us both to spend some time with family members at meals and have many conversations, including about our journey.

Both of our families are very supportive of our Black history tour and were interested to hear about it. We do a lot of eating out in restaurants when we are in Gilbert, this trip included, as you may notice in the pictures.

Jarvis:  Well, here we are on our trip, staying in Arizona for a few days. This portion of the trip is nice and gave us plenty of time to reflect. We were hosted by Joe’s daughter and her family. We didn’t have any museums or sites to check out here, but it allowed us to catch our breath and relax.

I don’t think I realized how much energy would be spent doing all of this traveling. So this was nice, to just let the days take me in any direction. 

I got to meet Joe’s family and be shown around with no major expectations or plans. We did a little more eating and Joe and his daughter showed me around Gilbert. They have an interesting watering system there called flood irrigation. I guess it’s good for desert-type areas. They flood the lawns and yards. 

At the same time, it was interesting to see that many people in the town had horses, mini horses and goats. Being from a big city, this is still interesting to me. It didn’t seem to be the kind of place that was very racially diverse. It was really pleasant, and I didn’t feel unwelcomed at any point.

Jarvis Harris, of Lacey, is a retired U.S. Army veteran and former Pierce County corrections officer who now dedicates his time to personal passions and volunteering. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he settled in Lacey during his Army service.

Joe Foss, of Tacoma, is a Navy veteran and retired business owner who has been actively engaged in projects addressing racism in America since 2012.