Since it took off in 2017, the #MeToo movement has provided people with the opportunity to speak out and condemn gender-based violence and sexual misconduct. In the time since, the movement has prompted acknowledgment in many areas of society, from policy to the workplace.
However, long before the “#MeToo era” was given a name — making headlines andinfluencing marketing campaigns— activists worked tirelessly with and for survivors of sexual violence to make change and help people heal. Now, some of the most respected and influential people in the fight to end gender-based violence are beginning to get the spotlight they deserve — even though they admit that they’ve never been in it for the recognition.
“To recognize us collectively was just very powerful for me and important because we do this work collectively,” said Simmons, who directed and produced the award-winningNO! The Rape Documentaryand recently launched#LoveWITHAccountability, a project focused on addressing child sex abuse.
Other awardees includeKenyette Tisha Barnes,Oronike Odeleye,Luz Marquez Benbow,Aleesha BarlowandKalimah Johnson.
“To be honored at the event was truly an opportunity for me to stop and reflect back on my personal and professional journey to center the voices of Black women and girls in an urban area [Detroit] who have been sexually assaulted,” Johnson told PEOPLE.
“I have never done the work with any expectations of an award of any kind, as my reward has always been to witness Black women integrate their personal traumatic sexual experiences into successful lives and to triumph over obstacles that challenged them in living whole and happy.”
Thesinger, 52, faces 10 countsof aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Kelly, who has repeatedly denied all claims against him, was previously arrested in 2002 on child pornography charges. Six years later, a Cook County jury found Kelly not guilty on all 14 counts.
After years of grassroots organizing, the #MuteRKelly movement took the national stage in January as it led to the groundbreaking six-part docu-seriesSurviving R. Kelly. Many have said the documentary served as the first mainstream televised focus on sexual violence against Black women. The documentary might not exist without Barnes and Odeleye, who teamed up to launch #MuteRKelly and shut down one of his concerts in Atlanta in the wake of ascathing BuzzFeed reportthat chronicled the singer’s alleged abuse.
However, Barnes had been speaking out about Kelly since the late 1990s — with her cries largely falling on deaf ears, save for ateam of dedicated journalists in Chicago.
“Mute R. Kelly started over coffee and mutual outrage,” Barnessaid in her acceptance speechat the event. “It only was simply to cancel the Atlanta concert, that’s all we ever wanted to do. And here we are two years later, 12 chapters including 10 around the country, two internationally … We have taken an estimated $2 million out of his pocket.”
Barnes adds: “I am here because it is truly, for me, an acknowledgment of years of sweat equity, uncompensated labor, hard work that I’ve put into changing the landscape for Black women and girls.”
Luz Marquez Benbow.
Barlow, the founder and author ofTell Somebody, an organization working to end child abuse, shared her own story of abuse at the dinner and was met with cheers and words of support from her fellow activists. Shededicated her award to“all of the children that are in the world right now that are being abused … and to all the survivors.”
“I believe that together we can build a world where communities are never a place to harm and a place where Black Latinos, children and all children, could be free from violence, supported and live in their true Blackness and all the beauty we possess as a people,” Benbow said.
Benbow serves as associated director of theNational Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault (SCESA), which Benbow touts as “thefirst-ever national Women of Color(WOC) led anti-sexual assault organization in the United States.”
The honorees weren’t only activists and educators who took the stage at the event. Famed thinker and writer Darnell Moore, who serves as Breakthrough’s head of U.S. Strategy and Programs, shared his wisdom at the start of the gala to roaring applause. Moore is the author ofNo Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America, a memoir he uses to engage men in the fight to end sexual violence.
source: people.com
