This past Tuesday, the nation seemed to hold its collective breath as Alabama voters decided who would replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the U.S. Senate. Perhaps no one was more concerned about the outcome as former Alabama residents now living in other states and countries. Even though they couldn't vote and might not have lived in the state for decades, these expatriates felt there was a lot at stake in the special election.
They'd done what they could, sending money to Democrat Doug Jones's campaign and pleading with conservative family members back home not to vote for Republican Roy Moore. But on election night, they were helpless as the tight race between Jones and Moore played out in their deeply red home state.
Though she hasn't lived in her native Mobile in 30 years, Leanne Potts still considers it home. A freelance journalist in Alpharetta, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, she visits Mobile every year during Mardi Gras.
Roy Moore almost changed that for her. "When voters continued to support Moore after the allegations of, um, inappropriate sexual behavior and he recovered in the polls, I thought I was going to have to divorce my home state, shred my birth certificate and start going to Mardi Gras in New Orleans," she said.
To Potts, Moore was "the walking, talking, cowboy-hat wearing, gun-waving, Bible-obsessed Alabamian right out of central casting," she said. "I believed Alabama has lost its mind."
Then, on the morning of the election, she called a very conservative relative in Mobile. They don't usually discuss politics, she said, because they don't agree. But her family member brought up the election and surprised her by saying she was going to vote - for the Democratic candidate.
"Once she told me she was voting for Jones, I knew at that moment Doug Jones was going to win," Potts said.
As she chatted with friends on social media that night, Potts was thrilled when Jones was announced as the winner. She jumped around, yelling and scaring her dogs, she said, and she couldn't sleep Tuesday night because she was so happy.
"I have never been as proud of my home state as I am today," she said on the day after the election.
Like Potts, Marvin Fitts of Miami Beach, Fla., felt hopeful, once again, after Moore's defeat. His native Tuscaloosa, where his mother and two sisters live, "was a blue county last night," he said Wednesday.
Glued to his laptop, Fitts stayed up until after 1 in the morning, he said, "gloating, crying, cheering," as he learned that Jones had defeated Moore.
He was happy but not surprised by the result. His voice chokes with emotion as he describes the reason for his optimism. "I had seen all the bright, promising, dedicated, ebullient, wonderful people from my home state and their dedication to getting out the vote, and it made me think, 'This thing's got legs. It's going to happen.'"
"Relieved" is a good way to describe how he felt, he said - and he enjoyed waking up Wednesday morning without a sense of dread, for the first time in more than a year.
Florence native Neilan Tyree of Jacksonville, Fla., a business development professional who also works in Los Angeles and New York City, said he was "over the moon" about Jones's win. He watched with pride as his friends at home in Alabama "stepped up to the plate and actually did so much to achieve this victory."
Tyree said he has spent the past 40 years "extolling the virtues of my beloved home state" as a "self-designated ambassador." A frequent visitor to Florence - he's been there six times in the past two years, he said - he was worried about the outcome of the election "and whether I would plan to visit again next year."
He's still proud to be an Alabamian, he said, adding that now he's "glad not to have any reservations about shouting that from the mountaintop."
Johnny Prewitt understands that feeling. Originally from Mobile, Prewitt has lived more than half his life in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he moved in 1979. When asked where he's "from," he said, his response varies, "depending on the context and tone of the person asking." More than a few times, he said, when he confides that he's from Alabama, he's received a negative reaction.
"But today and for the foreseeable future, I will be proud to tell folks without hesitation I was born and raised in Alabama, a place full of wonderful folks, beauty, irony, reconciliation and progress," he said. "Had Moore won the election, the response to that question, depending on circumstances, would be defensive and possibly with an apology."
Alabamians living outside the United States often find themselves having to explain things about their home state that they can't explain.
A resident of England for the past 16 years, Karen Tatom said she works exclusively with British or European people. "Like it or not, I have to explain America to people," she said - and those people have expressed the "utter disbelief and befuddlement" about the special election in Alabama that she shares.
Tatom went to high school and college in Mobile before moving to Hong Kong and then England. She left Mobile "on purpose," she said, adding that the final straw was when a well-meaning woman asked her "where she got" her then-2-year-old son, whose father is Vietnamese.
"I gave birth to a child of the world, and I had to raise him there and not in Mobile, Alabama," she said.
Her son is now 35 and speaks five languages.
Tatom has been following "an entire global shift to the right," she said, citing events in Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Turkey, China and The Netherlands. She watched the Alabama Senate election in that context. When she woke up early Wednesday morning, she saw the banner headlines about Jones's win.
"I was pleased, but I don't have an effusive response," she said. "This was a ray of hope for me, but not a watershed event."
Living in Athens, Greece, since 1976, Athan Vellianitis, a U.S. Air Force Vietnam veteran who was born in Mobile, said he hasn't been able to escape questions about Alabama's past. "Most still consider Alabama as a backwater state which has been on the wrong side of history since its founding as a state of the Union," he said.
Vellianitis had given up hope that Alabama would elect a Democrat to statewide office, he said - which is why Jones's win was "an unexpected but uplifting event" for him.
"It was like a breath of fresh air," he said. "I could now hold my head up to someone who asked me about my origins."
He points out that "it was Alabama's African-American population that had much to do with canceling out the white bigot vote in this election. I had a fear that the same old voter suppression tactics used in previous elections would be used in this one also. It appears that with all of the state's past political corruption, the time had finally arrived where the people had to say, 'Enough is enough.'"
Erane Trenier Allen, who is black, left Mobile in 1971, she said, "mainly because of the lack of opportunity in my home state and the Jim Crow era," and has now lived in the North longer than she did in the South. She and her husband live in Pittsford, N.Y., and had always intended to retire to Mobile, where most of her family still lives.
But she retired five years ago and hasn't been able to make the move back home because of the political climate and bigotry in her home state, she said. Like others, she has been embarrassed to admit she's from Alabama, especially after Donald Trump's win last year. The thought of Roy Moore becoming an Alabama senator "disgusted" her, she said.
"I prayed that Alabama would do the right thing in this election," she said. "I prayed that blacks would be inspired and energized to vote, and would turn out in record numbers."
As she watched on election night, she began to feel encouraged by the returns. When Jones won, she was "overcome with joy," she said. "This election was huge. I am proud of my home state today. I love the direction Alabama is moving in, and I say, keep on moving, Alabama! Way to go!"
Despite their enthusiasm, the state has a long way to go, many former Alabamians believe.
Betsy Hollis Walker, a native of Brantley, in rural Crenshaw County, who now lives in North Carolina, was "encouraged and heartened" by Jones's victory. She finds hope in the fact that so many Republicans voted for Jones, and she applauds the effort of black Alabamians to get out and vote, she said.
"I would love to take this as a positive sign in future elections," she said, but she is "disappointed that a large majority of white, educated women chose to back Moore, who openly is dismissive of women's issues and women's rights, even if one chooses to disregard the heinous sexual allegations."
A native Mobilian who moved away to work in Washington, D.C., in 1980, Jeremiah "Pepper" Woolsey now lives in California. He's a registered Independent who has worked on Democratic and Republican election campaigns. The Alabama election made him feel jubilant and proud, he said.
"I was glad Jones won over Moore," he said. "Hopefully, it has shown the world that Alabama is capable of doing the right thing. Let's see how long before the world reverts back to its condescension and in viewing the state as a caricature again. It's time for the world to do the right thing now.
"It was some feat that Jones pulled off. It will be an even greater feat for the Democrats to hold the seat beyond the 2020 election."
Leanne Potts, the journalist living in Atlanta, was "stunned" by Jones's win. At last, Alabama, which had embarrassed her in its early support for Trump, would be on the right side of history, she said.
"For Alabama to turn around and give Trump the blow that knocks off his crown is just incredible," she said. "And so gratifying for a native who knows my home state is better than Trump and better than Moore."