Walk Across America reaches Mobile Alabama amid Minneapolis shootings

I am now in Mobile, Alabama. My Walk Across America has brought me to the Gulf Coast, where I see a city alive with the prideful sweat of American labor, deep faith and the quiet determination to enjoy a good quality of life.

Yet, when I look at the news on my phone, all I see is the turmoil up north in Minneapolis, where federal agents have been involved in two fatal shootings last month alone — first Renee Good and then Alex Pretti. It’s a stark cultural war flashpoint: one side demanding aggressive border security and law-and-order crackdowns under the current administration and the other crying foul over what they call excessive force and federal heavy-handedness in a blue city.

As I walk these Southern roads, talking to everyday Americans, I can’t shake the question: Are we losing sight of our foundational values in this bitter culture war that seems to know no bottom?

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Everyone claims the moral high ground for America, but the visions are diametrically opposed. On the one hand, you have personal responsibility and secure borders, and on the other, you have grievance politics and open-ended leniency. The progressive left, emboldened in places like Minneapolis, isn’t stopping there. They’re pushing policies that undermine law enforcement and excuse disorder in the name of social justice.

What’s truly at stake? The very idea of ordered liberty. Will we defend the rule of law, secure communities and the God-given right to self-reliance, or descend into endless division, eroded sovereignty and a nation where chaos replaces order? From what I’m witnessing on this walk, the antidote isn’t more government overreach or radical activism—it’s the timeless principles still alive in places like Mobile.

Mobile, one of America’s oldest port cities, wasn’t conjured from academic theories, DEI mandates or endless federal stimulus checks. It rose through generations of hard work, free enterprise, trade and personal accountability.

I can’t help but notice the contrast to the South Side of Chicago, where the focus is on the government debating bloated programs and wealth distribution schemes that trap people in cycles of dependency. The result is business vacancies, lack of resources and massive, dilapidated housing projects.

The Port of Mobile stands as living proof that jobs — good, honest jobs rooted in industry and initiative — deliver dignity far better than any government handout ever could. 

But here in Mobile, the dockworkers, shipbuilders and logistics crews are out there every day creating real wealth and opportunity. The Port of Mobile stands as living proof that jobs — good, honest jobs rooted in industry and initiative — deliver dignity far better than any government handout ever could. When people are valued for what they produce rather than managed as wards of the state, communities flourish.

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I’ve spoken with families here whose livelihoods depend on this port, and they don’t wait for permission from Washington. They show up, work hard and build legacies. In sharp contrast to Minneapolis, where failed progressive policies have allowed crime, especially fraud, disorder and unchecked immigration, to fester before federal interventions turned deadly, Mobile reminds us that a strong work ethic and local economies free from overregulation are the true engines of prosperity and safety.

That’s precisely why I didn’t come to Mobile to lecture or “save” it. I came to listen and learn. True leadership doesn’t arrive with top-down government mandates or activist agendas. It walks humbly alongside communities, respects their God-given strengths and builds from the ground up. You can’t heal what you don’t love, and real transformation—like what we’ve fought for with Project H.O.O.D. in Chicago—grows organically when rooted in local faith, family and responsibility. 

In Mobile, pastors, parents and workers have welcomed me not as an outsider with all the answers, but as a brother in Christ seeking common ground. This stands in stark relief to the ideological battles paralyzing places like Minneapolis, where federal overreach meets radical resistance and commonsense solutions are lost in the noise.

The South’s quiet resurgence proves what coastal elites mock as “backward” is actually forward-thinking: lower taxes and living costs that let families thrive, stronger marriages and churches that anchor moral life, and a belief in personal ownership over government dependency. 

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Hurricanes have hammered Mobile repeatedly, yet the people rebuild without whining or waiting for bailouts. Neighbors helping neighbors, faith sustaining hope, responsibility trumping excuses. When faith erodes, as it has in too many urban centers, communities crumble.

Government can coerce compliance, but only God and the individual, rightly understood, can truly transform hearts and rebuild societies.

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