There Must Be a Witness: Stories of Abuse, Advocacy, and the Fight to Put Children First

True child advocates are not born, they are forged out of frustration and faith. There Must Be A Witness profiles a group of child advocates in Alabama who have devoted themselves to help children thrive―and by extension, to better meet the needs of their communities. This collection of stories, narrated by Sue Bell Cobb, the state’s first female Chief Justice and a former juvenile court judge, draws back the curtain on what drives such advocates. In the case of Liz Huntley, a prominent Birmingham lawyer, and Roberta Crenshaw, a former prison lay counselor, advocacy grew out of enduring the most horrific abuse. For Jannah Bailey, the director of Child Protect, her calling has always been to stand between children and violence. Cobb’s own life of advocacy stems from what she saw in courtrooms across Alabama. As a jurist she was bound to serve the law, but as an advocate she championed some of the state’s most sweeping child policy reforms in recent decades, including a toe-to-toe fight with back-slapping tobacco company lobbyists. Along the way she was humbled by the inspiring group of child advocates she met digging firebreaks against poverty, child abuse and neglect, inadequate medical care, and shortcomings in education. Collectively, the stories included in this volume call us to stand witness and testify to policymakers on behalf of children―to insist that government be used as a force for good in people’s lives.

Violence against our children wounds us all. It’s infuriating when our system fails to identify or officially acknowledge a child’s suffering in time to do something about it. Few failures are more frustrating than witnessing a child return to a home wracked by violence or sexual abuse―yet it happens all too often in courtrooms across the nation. The data for 2015 show that nationwide an estimated 683,000 children were victims of child abuse and neglect. Three-quarters of those were victims of neglect; 17 percent were physically abused, and over 8 percent were sexually abused. In addition, more than fifteen million children in our country are living in poverty―22 percent of the nation’s total child population. A little over 20 percent live in households where at times there is simply not enough to eat.

In recent years, the population of children in the South has grown substantially faster than in other regions, shifting added responsibility onto Southern leaders, too many of whom are more interested in “family values” posturing and anti-tax fanaticism than in actually governing for the greater good.

These circumstances demand next-generation policies that are smarter and more effective at both the national and state level. We need stateswomen and statesmen who recognize that success is not measured in election cycles but in building lean, healthy, effective institutions that improve people’s lives for generations to come. It is time for child advocates to bear witness.

Sue Bell Cobb made history as the first female Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, but what she saw in courtrooms drove her from podium to pulpit across the state and into the halls of the Alabama Legislature, fighting to secure some of the most important child policy reforms in decades. The women profiled in There Must Be a Witness are a few of the extraordinary advocates she met along the way. Their stories reveal the astonishing reach of human resilience. They also demonstrate the painful price of failing to protect the most vulnerable among us and are a testament to the profound dedication of true child advocates. Together, the stories in There Must Be a Witness call us all to join their fight.