ISU Bengal

Issue date: 4/22/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Submitted Photo

Friday, April 24, 2009 marks the tenth anniversary of the Take Back the Night March and Rally sponsored by ISU, which was brought to Pocatello in 2000 by Kim Talbot, Coordinator of Project Hope Advocacy Program and Assistant Director of Advocacy for the Anderson Gender Resource Center.
Take Back the Night is an event that brings awareness of sexual violence to the community and gives survivors a voice. When the first march was held in Pocatello, only about 60 people showed up, due to lack of knowledge about the event; however, over the years it has grown exponentially. "We want to have the tenth annual Take Back the Night be the biggest that it has ever been," said Talbot. "Last year we had about 500 people, but the weather was weird; it was cold. The year before that, we had over 700 people, so we really would like to see that many people come out on Friday."
According to takebackthenight.org, some believe that the event originated in 1877 when women in London protested the violence and fear they experienced in the nighttime streets. Others believe that the first rally took place in Belgium in 1976 when women who were attending the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women took to the streets with lit candles to protest the ongoing violence that was taking place against them. It finally made its way to the United States in 1978 when protesters against pornography in San Francisco envoked the slogan. That evening, those who had been affected by pornography spoke and shared their stories with the crowd. That tradition has been carried on, and at almost every Take Back the Night rally, survivors of sexual violence speak out and share what they went through.
This year's Take Back the Night event is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, April 24, on the south side steps of the Bannock County Courthouse. Kim Talbot, Kelly Martinez, from local radio station Star 98, and others will speak and free t-shirts will be handed out as well. From there, everyone will be asked to walk to ISU's PSUB ballroom where there will be free food, a free raffle and information on how to end sexual violence will be available as well. A local survivor will also share her story, and the contact person for Men Today Men Tomorrow will speak on starting a local chapter of the organization in Pocatello.
When asked why it is important for people to attend and participate, Talbot commented, "Why wouldn't you? Everyone knows a survivor of sexual violence, that person just may not have told you yet." She continued, "You can learn more about it and support those people and we are going to be affected by it directly or indirectly. It's a community problem if we continue to sit here and think that sexual violence is just a personal problem or individual problem then we are missing the solution."

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