"The silence was really meant to be for one day -- as well as a gift to my community because I felt I talked too much -- not to prove anything," he said. "As it went on, I realized that the vow of silence was really a gift to myself."
As Francis notes in a self-published book he wrote about his travels, even his own father questioned his so-called word fast.
"Things are difficult enough for black folks without you tying a stone around your neck," Francis' book relates his father, John, saying. "What do you think you're doing? Man, just stop this foolishness and start driving and saying something, because right now you ain't saying anything."
Still, his choice launched Francis on an odyssey.
In 1983, he began what he envisioned would be a silent one-man walk around the world. Along the way, he communicated with a mix of fluttering hands, bobbing, nodding and facial expressions.
Other times, he showed a piece of paper explaining his quest.
"This is to introduce John Francis, who gave up the use of motor vehicles not long after an oil spill in San Francisco Bay in 1972.... Since 1973, John has maintained a vow of silence."
His slip-ups were rare. Once he excused himself after accidentally burping in front of a fellow shopper in a grocery store. Alone in some motel, watching Charlton Heston as Moses raising his hands to part the Red Sea, he involuntarily gasped, "Oh, my God!"
Some people he met disdained him as another misguided wanderer looking for attention. Others offered him food and shelter. When money ran low, he worked odd jobs such as boat builder and printer. He sold paintings and watercolors he'd drawn on his travels. He played his banjo for handouts.
Along the way, he educated himself. He applied for scholarships and other funding. While he studied for his bachelor's degree in general studies at Southern Oregon State College in Ashland, locals impressed by his silence urged him to run for City Council. He declined.
Later, while earning his master's degree in environmental studies at the University of Montana, Francis taught classes without talking. He earned a PhD at the University of Wisconsin studying the societal costs of oil spills and their cleanup.
His classes were often a frustrating exercise in charades. "Sometimes, what the class thought I was saying wasn't what I meant," he said. "But what we finally agreed upon was better than what I meant."
