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I'm Earl.

And this is Craig, my best friend.

We tell stories.

Normally, we drop in for a week to find the coolest people we can find to show us around and we bring you along for the ride.

This one is different, more complicated, closer to home.

It started with Mobile, Alabama.

And Mobile has all of these things.

[music playing] But then, it's the shipyards.

And just a few miles past that, a place where most locals have never heard of, or won't go near, Alabama Village, the most violent, impoverished community in the state.

And it's where our story begins.

[music playing] Rapper Lil Logie grew up in Alabama Village and his music is steeped in the culture and lifestyle of this forgotten community.

Everyday you'll take it breezy.

But I've no problem-- Music videos aside, the guns are real.

The drugs are real.

And the violence is real.

But we've found that there's a lot more to this community than poverty and crime.

[music playing] [interposing voices] [music playing] Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Lord, we just want to say thank you for allowing us to come together as a sad group who's lost someone very special to all of us.

But now, he's with you chilling in some room, with his big goofy smile, and probably knowing that it's going to be all right.

It still is hard for us as we go through this journey to remember just how special he was and that he won't be here tomorrow.

But we can have the confidence in knowing that he's in your house now.

Just bring peace, especially to Deborah Lacy, and Jerome, and just the whole family.

And let us always remember that you are the light.

In Jesus' name, we pray.

Amen.

[music playing] [gunshot] [interposing voices] [interposing voices] Seems like we're on the right side of it.

[music playing] As the gunshots during Mayo's memorial suggest, this is not the first shooting in Alabama Village and it won't even be the last of our story.

Gun violence is a way of life here.

And there's no singular cause.

Poverty, drugs, illegal weapons, even boredom, all play a role.

But the sad fact is that it's often personal disputes between friends and neighbors, which means one shooting usually leads to another.

Now, Allen, you're hearing that the victims knew each other.

There are about 40 shell casings at-- Prichard police are on the scene of a shooting near the-- Mayo was a member of Light of the Village, a youth center and a church that serves the small community of Alabama Village.

It was started 16 years ago by John and Dolores Eads when they left their day jobs in the worlds that they knew for something else.

John and D-Lo, as she prefers to be called, are genuine members of this small community of several thousand, and they show up almost every day trying to make it a better place for the kids who grew up here.

In many ways, the Light of the Village Youth Center is just providing the basics most of us take for granted- food, child care, role models, and a safe place to play or study.

In a community, often defined by poverty where people face gun violence on a daily basis, and there aren't many ways to earn money unless you're breaking the law, sometimes, the only safe way out for those approaching adulthood is to just get out of the village.

And Mayo's shooting was a heartbreaking reminder of this for John, who often work closely with the older kids to prepare them for college.

He wanted us to meet Mayo's friend, Jesse, because he believed if what happened to Mayo was the worst case scenario, Jesse had an opportunity to be the best case scenario.

See, like Mayo, Jesse and his two younger brothers grew up at Light of the Village.

Jesse's mother, Cindy Darrington made sure of it.

First, church, then the after school program, and he has now moved on to the teen leaders program.

Jesse is on track to graduate high school preparing for college and heavily involved in the Light of the Village candle making workshop that helps raise money for academic fees in an annual trip to Juarez, Mexico.

He's been almost every year.

And it's a big deal for him.

All things considered.

He was optimistic.

[interposing voices] ♪ Oooh, Child ♪ [laughs] Don't play with me Gervais.

[laughs] What do you want to be you grow up?

Police.

Police officer?

Or a lawyer.

Or a lawyer?

So you know what you gotta do, right?

Yes.

What you gotta do?

I gotta go to church.

Do bible study, And one more thing before I leave.

I love light an Mrs. D-Lo And I love everybody and I love Mr. John.

Love Mrs. D-lo Bye.

Bye.

How's he going to make it out?

To me he's [inaudible] about the light.

They're pretty smart.

Yeah.

Their brothers were actually-- Mayo was their uncle before he died and, like, they can make it out but I think they just-- Wait, Mayo was his uncle?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I asked John.

I said, everyone's going to make it out, not everyone's going to make it out.

What's the difference?

Well, how do you tell one kid versus another kid?

Everybody's all different.

Yeah.

Some kids don't have parents.

Some kids have one parent but, like, if they just really put them on to it, they can get anywhere they want to go.

You need to know they're smart kids.

Do you feel like you already know which one's going to make it out and which ones aren't?

You never know.

I don't know.

But I just hope all of them will make it out.

What do you hope for?

Well, actually, I hope to be, like, graduate of high school, go on to college as soon as I get out of the hospital.

Yeah.

Like, I just want to come back 10 years later and then see Mr. John smiling, "what up bo".

[laughs] Are you scared for yourself?

Yeah.

I am scared for myself and my brothers.

Yeah.

Like, out here, anything can happen.

Yeah.

I think it is big a star soon right now you never know.

Yeah.

Jesse is at a pivotal point in his life and John knows it.

John takes us on a ride in the big white church van to show us what Jesse is up against.

It starts in Chickasaw, the neighboring community to illustrate what is happening to the village as it's called.

This is the typical '50s van blue color Andy Griffith kind of town.

What's the demographic makeup, John, of this [inaudible]??

Yeah.

Demographically, Chickasaw back in the '50s was pretty much all white, middle-class folks.

1942, of course, World War II was in full swing, they were building a lot of ships here for the war in Mobile Bay and they needed housing.

And this is when Alabama Village was built.

It was originally called the war housing project.

And this was the area that started kind of your typical what they would call white flight moment.

It's almost block by block by block.

People would start moving out of these blocks and making them available for renters.

So they would then rent it to the government and make it a Section 8 house.

So now all of a sudden, crime was going up, poverty was going up.

The founders of Chickasaw came up with a three-pronged plan to stop that.

Number one, they broke away from the school system.

They started their own school system.

Number two, they really started aggressive policing.

Our kids know this.

I mean, when you come into Chickasaw, the police don't play.

The third thing they did is right in front of us here.

This is an illegal barricade according to the Prichard authorities that they put up.

This barricade initially installed as a way to deter drug traffic and shield Chickasaw from the increased violence and crime has effectively sealed off the community of Alabama Village, making it more isolated, more desperate, and more dangerous.

Right now, where we are, we're a couple of blocks from Chickasaw where we were.

It's dramatic.

The difference between downtown Mobile, with all the nice restaurants and everything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is like a little island.

And I'll tell you what's crazy, man, is most people who've grown up here their whole life, they've never come here.

Yeah.

The responses the times we've been here and a lot of people I was shocked by how many people didn't know this place even existed.

Yeah.

And we tell our volunteers if you're not called to this, I don't want you here, because it is dangerous.

I mean, now we've had 133 people shot within 300 yards of our building since 2003.

It is not a joke, man.

Mayo was the 30th person lost to gun violence in the neighborhood in the past five years.

And if that is John's fear for Jesse, his hope is Da'cino Dees.

He came up through the program and is where John hopes every one of his youth end up, safe, employed, and independent.

He still comes back to the village for church and to mentor younger kids like Jesse.

He took us to his old home on D-block in the heart of the village.

It used to be a vibrant place.

You can barely find the houses now.

How old were you when you lived here?

I was about 9 or 10.

How long was this room?

Wait, we can just go through the hall number one.

[laughter] This was my room.

And I had to share with my two brothers.

You used to watch on you VHS tapes and you brother?

You know.

Probably Lion King or something.

[laughs] So you lived here during that period when your mom's boyfriend or husband-- Stepdad.

Stepdad.

We barely came outside.

Well, the day that I met John, we we just cutting grass.

We didn't get paid.

He wouldn't pay us.

So he was getting the money?

You're all having to do the work, he was getting money.

John's told me that you didn't really talk much back then.

No.

No.

No.

I was like these white folks trippin.

I was like, who comes to the hood just to help people out.

But I gotta feel sorry about that now.

[laughter] You got suckered in.

He said Jesse used to live?

Yeah.

He's stayed right next door to me.

That time, we didn't really talk to each other.

He stayed right next to me.

[laughs] Da'cino took us to pay our respects to Mayo on Hale Drive, the heart of all violence crime and money in Alabama Village, and where Mayo was shot.

And unfortunately, there's been seven people now killed on this street.

This little street right here.

In fact on the porch, this is where Mayo was killed, right?

So you grew up with Mayo.

And how old was he?

He was 25.

He was laying here.

There was that Sunday.

It's like 3:30 in the afternoon, day like today, quiet like right now.

And all of a sudden, you know somebody-- to stay right here, it's not hard to end up not making it out.

On the other side, it's fun.

You're hanging out with your buddies.

Hanging out with people that you can turn in quick second.

They always do it for everybody?

So every time I see a cross, it's somebody?

That's right.

They either got killed or they did a memorial.

Yeah.

So Jesse was out of crossroads.

On the one hand, was college and the life beyond the village.

And on the other, was Hale Drive, and everything it had to offer, including the danger.

Light of the Village provided community through church, its youth center, and Jesse's participation in their teen leaders program, while John acted as a kind of mentor.

Things seemed to be tipping in the right direction.

Then Christmas happened.

That's when we got the call from John that Cindy, Jesse's mother had just died in another act of gun violence.

John had just lost another member of the community.

But Jesse and his brothers lost the most important person in their life.

We were hesitant but John said Jesse wanted to talk.

If we were going to tell his story, he wanted us to tell all of it.

So Jesse's actually graduating.

He is online to graduate and two weeks ago, he was accepted to a college.

Wow.

Now of course, with everything that happened three nights ago, who knows where we're going to go with that.

That's Cindy's house down there with the boards on it.

Yeah.

That's where Cindy was killed three nights ago.

The thing that blows my mind sometimes is it's almost like just another day.

Well, even you were saying today that Jesse and the boys are in school this morning, and their mom got shot Friday night, and it's just Monday.

Another shooting doesn't stop Christmas at Light of the Village.

It doesn't stop anything.

There are too many violent incidents for it to work that way.

So we were talking earlier about the fact that Jeremiah, the youngest.

How old is Jeremiah, roughly?

About 9 or 10.

Have you slept through the whole thing?

Because like right here and you hear gunshots every day, all day.

So it is nothing new.

When you hear gunshots, that's all you think.

Is it close or is it far away?

Dude, this just literally happens all the time?

All the time.

How can you even feel like you're safe or comfortable even coming in here.

I mean, even though you-- I mean, you don't.

You just pray to God that nothing happens.

See, I think he looks up to you a lot.

What do you kind of hope for Jesse coming forward?

I want just to get out of the village.

Once sudden tragic happened like this, the neighborhood is here for you.

But that always turns out bad because it will suck you in and just suck the soul right out of you.

It almost sounds counter-intuitive to me but what you're saying is when the tragedies happen-- Everybody's behind you.

But Jesse, I don't want him to get tied up into the hood.

You think that they're your friends and then all of a sudden, they could turn on you.

Then you feel like you have nobody.

I just pray that he stays away from this because I know I don't want to come back.

I come back for church and that's it.

I don't even hang around out here.

Me and my brothers, we couldn't even cry.

It was just unbelievable.

It felt like it wasn't real at first.

When it happened?

Yeah.

When it happened, all three of us was in the house.

We ran up there.

And actually, it was more like, I felt like, I was angry.

I was mad.

I was so mad.

And I was saying also like, why would you kill somebody over nothing?

When we heard about it, we were shocked as well.

Kind of just thinking about all the conversations that we had with her, all the conversation we had with you.

Yeah.

So can you talk about what does it mean today?

Actually, I'm just trying to be stronger for my brothers and stuff.

Because I know and I just can't show no weakness and I know my mom will not want me to show weakness either.

So I think I'd be strong for them.

Who do you go to when you feel weak?

Actually, I go to just Mr. John.

He told me like most everything I know.

He's my mentor.

He's pastor.

He's all.

He's everything.

I had never had a father figure so Mr. John stepped in.

And my mom would just like being influenced like the neighborhood and the community.

People are already saying it ain't the same no more.

That's, I think, one of the things that John said a lot of the light, Like of the Village was your momma.

Yeah.

I was thinking a little bit about your future.

You get this opportunity to go through and feels like you-- I mean, just right there.

You know, you just got accepted in college and then this happens.

Now all of a sudden, your role in the family changes.

Cindy and the boys read from the Bible every morning.

Jesse look for some small comfort in the verses he knew by heart.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want.

He made me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restore my soul.

He lead me in the path of righteousness for his name sake.

Yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.

Your rod and staff comfort me.

You present a table for me in the presence of my enemies to honesty.

My head with oil, my cup overflows.

Surely goodness of mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Amen.

He went to the candle making as a way of escape.

It was work he knew.

And with the proceeds being used for some of his academic fees and the rest going towards their mission trip to see Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, at least it met forward momentum.

She knew everybody.

She would call us quite often and say hey, Mr. John, I hate to worry you.

That was her favorite.

And I would say, oh, gosh.

And so she was always kind of had her finger on the pulse of Gulf village, right?

I don't think when she has to check up on the boys even though they would probably say that it was.

And I had an interesting conversation with her one day after church just about Jesse.

And we're talking about these decisions, pivotal point where Jesse is in his life.

And she said, you know, I'm kind of worried about him.

Her eyes were wide open.

She knew what was going on in the neighborhood.

And she knew her boys were coming of the age.

There were going to be temptations and options for them to take that weren't quite so good.

And I think she did everything she could to help them away from that.

That I immediately thought about Jesse of course, and Jeremiah, and Jarrell thought about what they must be going through.

It didn't really hit me, quite frankly, until later that this is something y'all are experiencing as well.

Yeah.

Not just myself, my wife, but the staff.

Again, these aren't just pictures we pulled off Facebook that are on the wall.

These are people our folks know very deeply.

This is kind of tough.

You can't lose that many people violently as well.

You just can't ignore it off.

Oh, you just have faith in-- but no.

Come on.

Give me a break.

You have to be cognizant of the fact that it can be traumatic especially when it goes again and again and again.

It's more than 30 people up there now.

Yeah.

In the early days, you ask yourself, did I do enough for that person?

You immediately go back to the last time you saw that person.

You spoke to them, right?

And that's one reason the walls up there.

It's to remind us consistently we don't know who's going up there next.

And like I said, it should be me because I'm the oldest one here but chances are, it's not.

I can't get tired.

I can't get frustrated.

I have to keep going everyday.

And really, again, reflect as much faith, love, and hope to whoever is here as much as possible.

And in fact, how difficult it might be with some folks, but you just do it, man.

You leave it all on the field, so to speak and then, we leave and get ready to come back the next day.

[music playing] With spring came new hope.

The mission trip to Juarez was here.

And Jessie arrived looking for healing.

[music playing] We crossed the border into Juarez and embarked on the mission trip that Jesse and the kids of Alabama Village had been working so hard to make happen these past few months.

Work had already begun on the gymnasium they were set to build and seeing its foundation laid excited Jesse and his friends.

The youth of Juarez were enjoying the playground that The Light of the Village had helped to install the previous year.

And Jesse couldn't wait to get started on this year's project and Bible camp.

Can you remember back to the first time you came?

What was your impressions of coming in here?

I was kind of a little scared and stuff with some of the stories.

What were you scared of?

Every time I've been with you in Alabama Village, I've heard gunshots.

Yeah.

[laughter] Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

You know, it's not our ballgame.

What happens now in the coming?

It's just like, there seems smiles on the kids facing the light to spread the love.

It's just these little kids and all that.

It takes your mind off to outside world.

Things are getting better.

We live with our grandmother now And we're just trying to make the best of everything every moment.

♪music and singing♪ What's your thought about-- I mean, I know what the project does for the people that live here, what does it do for someone like Jesse?

For Jesse, it gives him something to hold on to, something to look forward to.

But one of the things Jesse wrote in his senior paper is he wants to know look at me in a civil engineer because of what he's seen out here.

It struck me that Alabama Village on a certain level feels like it's really in decline.

Sure.

We're out here kind of building things up.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

The kids that were here they're learning what that looks like.

So while the rest of the world seems to be crumbling around them, here they're actually part of something that is a future.

Well, these kids we're so used to seeing mission groups come out to Alabama Village and do their mission project, right?

Right.

And so one day, the teenagers came to us, and then came to me and said, hey, why can't we do a mission project?

Then of course, I'm thinking to myself, guys you are the mission project.

Once I thought about that, I said, you know what, I'm holding them back.

It's just a good story.

The kids start seeing each other.

Yeah.

They want to do it.

It's not that hard.

We can all do it.

It's not that hard.

Don't ignore it, explore it, straight up.

[music playing] Just a month later and back in the village, the big day was upon them.

Jesse's grandmother, Cookie has been the boys' caretaker since they lost their mother.

And it was a bittersweet day for her as Jesse went off to college as she remembered her lost daughter.

We're going to take Jesse to college today.

I just wish Cindy was here to see that.

It's so hard when you lose a child.

I thought it was hard when I lost my mother, my grandmother, but it's so hard.

I can't imagine.

My heart is broken.

I don't know what to do about it.

It's a big day for Jesse.

Yeah.

And she was so close for Jesse graduation, but I guess God had a better plan for her.

There is no better testament to the impact Light of the Village has had on Prichard and Alabama Village than the heartfelt words Jesse wrote to John before leaving his home behind on this new journey.

Everyone has trials and tribulations in life, but it's how you overcome them, and use that lesson and message to do better in life that's important.

On December 1st, 2017, was one of the worst days of my life.

The love of my life, my mother was murdered at home while me and my brothers were inside.

It took a chunk out of me.

And I couldn't function emotionally, physically, or spiritually.

But with God's will, I came to understand that even though she was taken from us physically, spiritually, she is still with us.

And everyday, I try my best to make her as happy as I can as if she was still here on earth.

My plan in life is to first serve Christ, second, pursue becoming a civil engineer.

I was very fond of that career when I first went to Juarez, Mexico on a mission trip with my church family, Light of the Village.

It changed my whole perspective on life and become able to appreciate it more.

It's just a blessing to graduate and keep going on forward in my life.

I would like to thank many people.

My momma for teaching me many lessons, and raising us around the church.

I'd like to think Light of the Village for being there since as long as I can remember.

I appreciate the love and strength that each of these people gave me and I'm blessed to have them in my life.

[music playing] There's so much more to explore and we want you to join us on The Good Road.

For more in-depth content, meet us on the internet at thegoodroad.tv.

Hear more great stories, connect to organizations, and make sure you download our podcast Philanthropology.

Funding for The Good Road has been provided by-- Every road is a good road When you're behind the wheel of a Toyota Hybrid From the Toyota Venza and Sienna to Highlander Hybrid and Rav IV Hybrid And with available all-wheel drive these vehicles are designed to go the distance wether your driving to work, school or down the coast of Tanzania Proud sponsor of The Good Road, Toyota Let's go places Tomorrow's breakthroughs start with the determination and inspiration of today.

AMD helped solve the world's toughest and most interesting challenges by creating high performance computing technologies.

And by The Great Courses Plus, hundreds of topics from expert instructors to help you expand your knowledge.

Available for streaming anytime, anywhere.

And by Share More Stories, helping companies understand humans one story at a time.

[music playing] And by Uncommon Giving.

The Generosity Company.

[music playing]