BELHAVEN — Mayor of Belhaven Adam O’Neal reached the Virginia line this weekend as he continues his 273-mile trek to Washington, D.C. on foot.

This weekend, O’Neal said he has reached Yale, Va., and is headed toward Suffolk. He has been joined by Civil Rights legend Bob Zellner, a man who used to work with Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, O’Neal said.

“We’re right on schedule, doing good,” O’Neal said. “We walk mornings for about four to four and a half hours and then in the evening. So far, Bob (Zellner) is the only one to stay right with me on the walk, but we’ve got about 10 people who will join us today. He’s been dragging me to D.C., he’s walking so fast.

We have had amazing experiences on the road with people stopping and cheering us on. Yesterday, a man who knows about Belhaven, Richard Vaughn, welcomed us to his home for water and rest, just over the Virginia border. We’ve been received terrifically. I’ve been doing a lot of radio interviews. There’s been a lot of media and a lot of walking.”

Monday at 9 a.m., O’Neal began his journey to raise awareness about Vidant Health’s closing of Pungo District Hospital and to advocate for rural healthcare across the nation. A ceremony was held at the hospital in which residents of the town and North Carolina NAACP President Rev. Dr. William Barber said a prayer for O’Neal’s safe journey and joined him for a brief time at the beginning of the walk.

Not only is O’Neal walking in opposition to Vidant’s closing of the hospital on July 1, but also in memory of a Hyde County resident, 48-year-old Portia Gibbs, who died from a heart attack just after the hospital closed. O’Neal and area residents have said Gibbs’ death could have possibly been avoided had the hospital remained open. O’Neal is also walking for Medicaid expansion in North Carolina, he said. With the expansion, operation of the hospital would be more viable, O’Neal said.

In addition to Medicaid expansion, O’Neal and a transfer team, Poole and Associates, which has been charged with aiding the Town of Belhaven in coming up with a viable plan to run and sustain the hospital, say the implementation of an Accountable Care Organization — a provision of the Affordable Care Act — in Belhaven could make operation of the hospital not only possible, but profitable. In agreement is Bo Bobbit, a nationally recognized healthcare expert on ACOs.

Tuesday at 2 p.m., O’Neal will meet with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and will hold a rally in the state capitol of Richmond, he said.

“We’re going to be talking about our situation with Vidant. They don’t want to talk, so we’re just going to keep on marching until justice is done. We hope to bring enough spotlight to it that justice will be served.”

In Washington, O’Neal is hoping to meet with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, as well as President Barack Obama, to petition the U.S. Department of Justice to intervene in the issue, he said. Barber and the NC NAACP filed a Title 6 Civil Rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice following the Vidant’s closing of the hospital, stating the closing was in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They hope the DOJ will step in and investigate the hospital’s closing.

“We’re going to have a huge rally at the capital on Monday, July 28,” O’Neal said. “A bus is bringing up a crowd from Belhaven, Dr. Barber will be there and all the political groups supporting us will be there. At the rally, we’re going to be asking for justice for rural hospitals as well as the future of rural healthcare and we will be talking about Vidant Health and what they did to our town. Probably the beginning of this week we will learn about who we will meet in D.C. We are certainly going to see all of our congressional delegation that’s in town.”