A “Take Back the Night” march on April 20 brought together hundreds of students to raise awareness of sexual violence on college campuses as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Several campus and community organizations attended the event, including Alpha Chi Omega, Sweet Signatures, and CrossRoads, Alamance County’s Sexual Assault Response and Resource Center.
The evening started with a rally in the Academic Amphitheater where students and community members gathered to hear a speaker from CrossRoads. From the rally, a march around campus began with about 250 participants, all carrying banners and chanting “break the silence, stop the violence” and “claim our bodies, claim our right, take a stand, take back the night.”
The march ended in front of Whitley Auditorium, which was decorated with luminaries. Sweet Signatures, Elon’s female a capella group, performed three songs.
Afterward, survivors of sexual violence shared their stories, which some students described as the most powerful portion of Take Back the Night and an example of the courage that the women who spoke possessed.
This year, the logo of the national campaign focused on it being time to get involved. The Take Back the Night campaign first started in 1975, and the national program is coordinated locally on Elon’s campus by the SPARKS Peer-Education team.
– Information submitted by Elon University senior Kelly Little