Freedom From Violence

February is Black Heritage Month and President Barack Obama recently published a presidential proclamation to acknowledge this important month: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/01/31/presidential-proclamation-national-african-american-history-month-2012.  In this proclamation was an emphasis on the role of Black women who shaped American history: “This year’s theme, “Black Women in American Culture and History,” invites us to pay special tribute to the role African American women have played in shaping the character of our Nation — often in the face of both racial and gender discrimination.”

The anti-rape movement is certainly closely linked to and inspired by the feminist movement.  However, one thing many people don’t know is that it is also linked to the struggle for civil rights in the United States.  I recently read a thought provoking book called At the Dark End of the Street by Dr. Danielle McGuire.  At the Dark End of the Street details the role of women in the Civil Rights Movement, highlighting their contributions to the fight for equality.   In particular, Dr. McGuire describes the vital role that Black women played in the struggle against sexual violence—decades before rape crisis centers like the Zacharias Sexual Abuse Center were founded.  Black women activists were the ones who led the charge against sexual violence and exploitation.  In particular, many people might know Rosa Parks’ Civil Rights activism during the 1950s and 1960s.  However, she also was a tremendous activist for justice for sexual assault survivors long before the feminist anti-rape movement began.

Dr. McGuire’s personal website describes the book like this:

“Rosa Parks was often described as a sweet and reticent elderly woman whose tired feet caused her to defy segregation on Montgomery’s city buses, and whose supposedly solitary, spontaneous act sparked the 1955 bus boycott that gave birth to the civil rights movement.

The truth of who Rosa Parks was and what really lay beneath the 1955 boycott is far different from anything previously written.

In this groundbreaking and important book, Danielle McGuire writes about the rape in 1944 of a twenty-four-year-old mother and sharecropper, Recy Taylor, who strolled toward home after an evening of singing and praying at the Rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Alabama. Seven white men, armed with knives and shotguns, ordered the young woman into their green Chevrolet, raped her, and left her for dead. The president of the local NAACP branch office sent his best investigator and organizer against sexual violence to Abbeville. Her name was Rosa Parks. In taking on this case, Parks launched a movement that ultimately changed the world.

The author gives us the never-before-told history of how the civil rights movement began. Black women’s protests against sexual assault fueled civil rights campaigns throughout the South.” (http:// atthedarkendofthestreet.com/).

Rosa Parks in particular was a champion for rape survivors long before the rape crisis centers were founded or marches were held to ‘take back the night’.  In a time when rape was not taken seriously and survivors faced undeniable hostility, her investigation and courage meant that she would not be silent or controlled by fear (and that she would not allow Recy Taylor, the survivor, to be silenced by fear either).   I was personally floored by this story, and it made me aware of the importance of just one person standing up and speaking out.  In a time before organized action against rape, and in a time of rampant racial and gender discrimination, this type of activism was undeniably courageous.

This also got me thinking about the intersections between ending sexual violence and ending racial inequality. which makes a lot of sense when you think about it.  We cannot have equality if part of the population lives in fear of violence.  And we also cannot promote empowerment without supporting everyone’s right to live in a safe community that is free of violence.   A book like At the Dark End of the Street detailed, for me, stories that everyone interested in ending sexual violence should know.  It detailed how problems like violence, sexism, and racism often are interconnected in our culture.  But it also explained that despite the seemingly overwhelming nature of these problems, there has always been and will always be resistance in the form of activism and service.