Race, Gender, and the Fight to End Sexual and Structural Violence

Adrienne Spires, volunteer and outreach specialist at Rape Advocacy, Counseling and Education Services (RACES) in Urbana, traced Rosa Parks's little-known advocacy for Black survivors of sexual assault in Jim Crow Alabama, the 1944 Recy Taylor case, Ida B. Wells and the 1913 suffrage parade, and the 1977 Combahee River Collective statement, arguing that racial and class divisions still hamper the anti-violence movement. An assistant director of the campus Women's Resources Center introduced her during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. A Q&A followed.