Content warning: colonialism, incarceration, sexual violence, domestic violence.
If you have experienced relationship or sexual violence, or know someone who has, and want support or information, call the Advocacy Center’s 24-Hour-Hotline at 607-277-5000. The Advocacy Center provides a variety of free and confidential services to survivors, regardless of age, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, race, ethnicity, religious background, income level, or amount of education. Help is also available to friends, family members, and intimate partners of survivors. The Advocacy Center’s services are driven by and tailored to the wants and needs of the survivor. Visit actompkins.org for more information.
On Friday, April 26, about eighty people gathered on the Ithaca Commons for the forty-fifth annual Take Back the Night hosted by the Advocacy Center of Tompkins County. The two-hour event—sponsored by Red Jacket Orchards and Planned Parenthood of Greater New York Action Fund—was part rally, part performance, and part vigil. The Advocacy Center’s website described it as “an evening of reclamation, empowerment, and celebration” for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Around forty people participated in the marches to the main event from Ithaca College and the Greater Ithaca Activities Center.
Both the Advocacy Center and Take Back the Night have a long history in Ithaca and continue to evolve to serve the community better. Notably, this was the first year of Take Back the Night where most performers and speakers were people of color, and all were compensated for their time. Sign language interpreters were also present throughout the event line-up to enhance accessibility.
The first and perhaps most striking thing passersby at Take Back the Night noticed was a clothesline. On it hung shirts showcasing the writing and drawing of local survivors “airing their dirty laundry.” Some made broad statements advocating against sexual and domestic violence, while others penned their personal stories and experiences. This was part of a broader movement, “The Clothesline Project,” which resists the ways our culture has coerced survivors into silence.
Another project sought to give voice to survivors attending the event: The Advocacy Center had a table where attendees could write a note to a survivor, whether that was themselves, someone they knew, or survivors in general. These anonymous messages, sometimes broad, sometimes personal, were read aloud by volunteers later in the evening.
Planned Parenthood of Greater New York also had a table to hand out menstrual products and safe sex supplies and inform about the services they offer to both teenagers and adults, including gynecological care, abortions, and testing for sexually transmitted infections. They also raised awareness about the New York State Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would explicitly prohibit discrimination by the government based on a person’s ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, and sex-including sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. While much of this is already covered by state laws, the ERA would solidify this in the state constitution, making it harder to revoke. It would also protect against any government actions that would curtail a person’s reproductive autonomy or access to reproductive healthcare. It will be on the ballot this November.
The event line-up began with an official statement from Mayor Robert Cantelmo, proclaiming April 26, 2024 as “a day to take back the night in the city of Ithaca.” His speech recognized “that the responsibility to bring an end to domestic and sexual violence lies with all of us,” and that “our culture of victim-blaming, patriarchy, and sexism supports structures of power that leave oppressed groups vulnerable to violence and fails to hold perpetrators accountable.” He closed his short speech saying that “we uphold the right of survivors to reclaim their safety and autonomy and to take up space.”
This year’s keynote speaker was Jonel Beauvais, a Wolf Clan, Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) woman and a proud mother of three. She spoke of her time falsely incarcerated, the looming presence of the carceral system in her community in Akwesasne, and how these have informed her activism. “Akwesasne alone is ten miles long, three miles wide, and we have thirteen multi-billion dollar law enforcement agencies all fighting over who’s gonna arrest us, surveillance us, interrogate us,” she explained. “We are displaced from our lands. Do you know where they put us? The swamp.” “So, I’m not just coming to you as a survivor, I am a pure miracle. You were never supposed to get to know me, you were never supposed to get to hear from me. I would have just been getting out of prison last year.”
Beauvais has dedicated her life to tackling the cycle of violence in Native communities. She co-created the Welcome Home Circle in Akwesasne which runs a ‘Tiny Home Project’ to provide those transitioning from prison back into the community peer support and safe housing. To tackle violence against women, Beauvais works to connect with men who have done harm and try to facilitate healing, granting them the opportunity to demonstrate transformational justice.
Beauvais was followed by Ithaca local Alejandra Diemecke, who sang “La Llorona” and spoke of the folklore around it. She addressed the violence that Indigenous women have faced and the connection between colonialism, patriarchy, and rape. Drawing upon the example of La Llorona, she called for resistance against these forces. Diemecke ended her speech with the wish that “you can take some of the power of a woman scorned and put into the role of the villain against her will and wield that as you take back the night.”
The last speaker of the night was the storyteller Sol Alexandria who focused on the connection between colonialism, environmental destruction, and rape: “The intimate violence that occurs when another tries to claim your body without your consent goes hand-in-hand with the destructive practices of displacement, enslavement, and the intentional disregard for the value of life here on Earth.” Alexandria then spoke of finding empowerment through connection with the earth. They ended their speech with a poem they had written about processing the violence they had experienced.
After a survivor share-out, the local band Second Spring played a few songs with the theme of resistance as the crowd danced. At the end of the event, the attendees gathered together with candles for a minute of silence for those who have survived sexual and domestic violence and for those whose lives were taken in sexual and domestic violence.
Mayor Cantelmo reading his statement at Take Back the Night. Ace Dufresne