An outlined hand holding a sign that reads, "All Are Welcome," is part of the unfinished and uncolored mural on the wall at Central Presbyterian Church in Mobile. Artist Kathleen Kirk Stoves is waiting for the COVID-19 pandemic to pass to fill it in. The mural is a celebration of community and Kirk hopes the community will one day add the colors that bring it to life.

Hurricanes and tornadoes. We know the destruction of natural disasters and that the worst of times brings out the best in people. When hearts and hands are all we have left, generosity thrives. This COVID pandemic is different and we must stay away from each other to save each other. Those of us aching to help can only stay home. There are many things right now that hurt, but we are finding new ways to come together. We just need to keep John Prine.

On a table in the corner of the Rose Center is a vision board filled with pictures of hopes and dreams for a better life. A picture of “I Want To Be Free” written on an arm. Multiple images of broken chains. A Polaroid camera. A graduation cap and diploma. A house. A community having dinner outside at a long table. The words “If we care about human trafficking, we must care for orphans and foster youth.”

CPAP machines, chords, wires, and tubes. Rachel Smith didn't want pictures of her daughter in the NICU. This was not how Ella Grace's story was supposed to begin. Both mother and daughter almost died in a difficult pregnancy and were rushed from Thomas Hospital in Fairhope to Women's and Children's in Mobile. Rachel was in ICU for two weeks, Ella Grace was in NICU for a month and a half. Wanting to quickly move past a birth and delivery that didn't go as planned, Rachel didn't take pictures during their days in the hospital. A few were taken by her husband, nurses, and friends.

“My story is crazy. I still can’t believe sex trafficking happened to me or that people enslave young girls in Mobile.” 

Michelle said this as she took a sip of coffee at her kitchen table. The house was clean, and all was quiet after she put her son down for a nap.

“But if it happened to me, it can happen to anyone.”

In a parking lot near Interstate 10, surrounded by cheap motels and gas stations, 25 undercover officers from units of the Mobile Police Department assembled at 6:30 a.m. on May 9. It was the start of Operation Snag, a sting in multiple locations to arrest johns and prostitutes and find additional crimes. This was MPD’s first early morning prostitution sting, but officers insisted it would be active this time of the day.

“It is a dark world happening right here. The average person doesn’t want to know what is happening under their nose. The only way to end sex trafficking is to stop the demand and arrest the men who are paying,” said Julie McGuire, supervisor over youth investigations for the Mobile Sheriff’s Department and the Childhood Advocacy Center.

“We are upset when a child is kidnapped and raped by a stranger, and we go after him with a vengeance,” Chenoweth said. “We should be just as upset when it happens in a child's home by family or someone they know. I have worked with vulnerable children my whole life and people still don't want to talk about what is rampantly happening in all of our communities, even ‘Old Mobile’.”

These are Londoners with their own freakouts, including Brexit, a referendum that narrowly passed in June 2016 in favor of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. As the exit deadline on October 31 approaches with no plan, the sides, for and against, are split down the middle, but all say England is in crisis.

Being beat by a pipe or a stick, isolated from friends and family, thrown out of car or watching your children get a beating should never be normal. But abuse, anger, and reactions to them are learned from childhood and over 40 million adult Americans grew up living with domestic violence (Childhood Domestic Violence Association).