Fairhope is a tale of two cities, with sunny sides and dark sides, restaurant owner Pete Blohme said. Blohme owns Panini Pete’s and Sunset Pointe in Fairhope, Ed’s Seafood Shed in Spanish Fort, and Squid Ink in Mobile.
“People struggle here just like anywhere else, but they are hidden away,” he said in an interview before the Coronavirus. “We also have businesses, churches, and organizations that care.”
This “fair hope of success” is the feel-good history of Fairhope, but the untold story is of the black people who go back for generations and who have never been anywhere else, according to the Rev. John Whitfield, founding pastor of New Zion Christian Church.
Ecumenical Ministries, a social services agency in Fairhope, has provided help to low-income families and individuals in Baldwin County for 50 years. Executive Director Sally Dean said affordable housing is the biggest issue for the working poor in Fairhope and everywhere else in the country, but there are no easy answers.
This is humankind’s response to disasters. Southern disasters rip off roofs. They toss church awnings and trailers into trees. They scatter family photos and children’s art around the yard. Sometimes our disasters leave us with little more than the clothes on our backs. But we help our neighbors recover, rebuild, and move on.
As two men walked past the church, one said, "Thank you very much brother. If I don't say it every day, you better remind me to say it."
I don't know what he was thankful for, but I found my own reasons to be thankful for today.
I was supposed to celebrate on the porch of Eudora Welty's house in Jackson, MS, reading her words and mapping out where she took pictures in the Mississippi Delta during the 1930s. The plan was to take pictures in those same locations and interview the oldest people in the smallest towns -- collecting life advice and preserving stories.
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’.”
“Call it sexual slavery because that is what it is,” said U.S. Attorney for South Alabama Richard Moore. “Sexual slavery is one of the most frustrating crimes law enforcement goes after. We know it is happening in Mobile and Baldwin counties. We haven’t made a big arrest yet, but it is just a matter of time.”
