Mortal+/Theme/Plain/Overview

 Philadelphia is the home of The Plain. The movement began here, and the community that fostered it exists a short drive up Highway 30, in Lancaster County. Every year, young Amish kids leave their communities on Rumspringa, and every year some of them don't return. Many of those, as it turns out, wind up in Philadelphia among the Plain. The steady influx of new blood keeps the movement growing, replenishes those who grow disillusioned or who perish in the pursuit of radical pacifism, and keeps its beliefs fresh and vital.

 Amish country isn't the only source of Plain in Philadelphia. The movement finds young leaders across all faiths, all creeds, all ethnicities. A young Christian from Senegal, a young Rabbinical student from Moreland township, and a young Hijabi from Kensington make a point of meeting every weekend for an interfaith peace roundtable. And participants in it often leave believing that peace in the Holy Land would be possible if these three were the ones brokering it.

 This movement's impact on the city cannot be understated. Though they are few in number, poorly funded, and easily killed, their impact on the level of violence within the city is entirely out of scope. Some of their number have joined with various activist groups within the city in an effort to keep these causes nonviolent. Some reach out to the local white supremacists in the hope of fostering a dialogue. Some use police scanners to shadow and hound the Philly PD in the city's non-white neighborhoods in an effort to stem the abuses of the department on the public. Some immediately insert themselves in turf battles between the city's street gangs, offering their own blood in place of further reprisals. These actions win column inches, screen time, and endless social media posts.

 They would decry terming their activities as a war, but if it were a war? It's a guerilla one. And they're starting to win it.