Marchers seek to Take Back the Night

by Rachel Wilkerson

A warm breeze was blowing and dusk was turning to dark around 8:50 p.m. Tuesday in front of East Lansing’s 54-B District Court when drum beats and chants began to fill the air.

“One, two, three, four! We won’t take it anymore! Five, six, seven, eight! No more beatings no more rape!”

The men and women who descended on the court house were part of Take Back the Night, an international rally organized in local communities with the purpose of unifying women, men and children to raise awareness of violence against women, children and families, according to the movement’s Web site.

“I thought it was empowering,” said Suzanne Borkowski, a Michigan State University freshman who was participating in the movement for the first time. “I loved the fact it was a co-ed march.”

Traditionally, only women have been allowed to participate in the march. Other cities have begun allowing men throughout the years, but Tuesday marked the first time East Lansing did.
“In order to actually end sexual assault, we need to get men involved. We need to be proactive instead of reactive to get men involved and to actually make social change,” said Travis Reed, an MSU veterinary medicine student and coordinator for Tuesday’s events.
Men marched alongside women carrying signs that read, “Real Men Respect Women” and “Break the Silence.”

“I’m amazingly pleased with the turnout,” said Reed. According to Reed, the participants were mostly MSU students and several MSU and Lansing-area groups were represented on the Take Back the Night planning coalition, including local crisis hotline the Listening Ear and the MSU Women’s Council.

“Right now it’s easy to get involved with students,” he said.

The march, which has been taking place annually for more than a decade in East Lansing, began on MSU’s campus at Beaumont Tower and concluded at the court, 101 Linden St. There the group read their list of demands which includes things like an end to all violence against women and safe streets regardless of a victim’s actions or appearance.
The march is the conclusion to a day of events that aim to raise awareness of sexual violence and include displays, discussions and a candlelight vigil.

“It was amazing,” MSU accounting student Lauren Mavis said of the Clothesline Project, in which sexual assault survivors write messages of anger, fear and hope on T-shirts that are hung from clotheslines on display.

“They’re still so affected but they’ve found a way to release it,” Mavis said.

Another display represented women who had not survived their attacks.

“In the Union they had silhouettes and each had a woman’s name, age and the way she died,” Borkowski said. “It was so moving.”

At the end of the post-march rally, one of the coordinators invited participants to do one more chant. They shouted their battle cry three times.

“Claim our bodies,

Claim our rights.

Take a stand,

Take back the night!”

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