Student Group Co-Sponsoring Take Back the Night March and Vigil to End Sexual Violence

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MACON – The Women’s and Gender Studies program and Mercer’s Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance are inviting community members to take part in an empowerment march to end sexual violence. The event is part of “Take Back the Night” and will begin at 7 p.m., when participants will gather at Third Street Park, march down Cherry and Magnolia Streets, and end with a candlelight vigil in Washington Park in downtown Macon. During the vigil, survivors, supporters and advocates are encouraged to help break the silence about sexual violence and speak out about their own experiences with sexual violence.

Take Back the Night is an international event that is believed to have started in 1877 in England when women spoke out about their fear of walking the streets after dark. Since then, the campaign has spread to various parts of Europe, and landed in San Francisco in 1978.

Though historically Take Back the Night was specifically for women speaking out against sexual violence, we encourage women, men and children to participate in this event and acknowledge that sexual violence is not just a problem for women, but rather a problem for the entire human race.

The event is cosponsored by the Mercer’s Women’s and Gender Studies Department and the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance. Other sponsors include: Crisis Line & Safe House Of Central Georgia, District Attorney’s Victim Witness Assistance Program, Judicial Citizen Review Board, Department Of Juvenile Justice’s BARJ Program and J.U.S.T. Children Of Macon Inc.

About Mercer University:
Founded in 1833, Mercer University is a dynamic and comprehensive center of undergraduate, graduate and professional education. The University has 7,300 students; 11 schools and colleges – liberal arts, law, pharmacy, medicine, business, engineering, education, theology, music, nursing and continuing and professional studies; major campuses in Macon, Atlanta and Savannah; three regional academic centers across the state; a university press; two teaching hospitals — Memorial Health University Medical Center and the Medical Center of Central Georgia; educational partnerships with Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Warner Robins and Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta; an engineering research center in Warner Robins; a performing arts center in Macon; and a NCAA Division I athletic program. For more information, visit www.mercer.edu.
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