Take Back the Night is a biannual event here at Chico State, facilitated by GSEC and it will take place this semester on November 7, 2013. The event is composed of a keynote speaker, a Survivor Speak Out, a gender-inclusive workshop, a Slam Poetry Call-out, and silent candlelit vigil and march, all to promote awareness of sexual assault and to empower survivors and victims of it. Chico State is not unique in putting on this event. In fact, Take Back the Night is a movement that started in 1975 after the murder of Susan Alexander Speeth, who was stabbed to death while walking home alone in Philidelphia, PA.
As a freshman student, I'm very excited to see what will happen at Take Back the Night. I haven't been directly involved in its planning, so this will be all the more new for me. From what I have heard, though, it's truly an empowering and moving experience like no other. I can only imagine hearing the stories of the ordeals that everyday people have been through while sitting quietly in a dimly lit and warm room; learning and teaching people about the ideas that are perpetuated through society that are meant to oppress and demean innocent people every day for something out of their control; hearing some great poetry performed powerfully that also calls out the bullshit of society and those who go along with it; and perhaps most of all, I am looking forward to when no one is speaking, where the only sounds heard are the quiet chatter of passerbys, cars going by, and footsteps as we march, illuminated by candles and our need to take back the night for all who it had wronged.
Adrianna McCain
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