Candles burned bright over the streets of Charleston and throughout Eastern’s campus with cheers and shouts from marchers such as “What do we want? No More Rape! When do we want it? Now!”, “Charleston unite! Take back the night!” and “Two, four, six, eight, no more date rape!”

People marched from the Campus Pond Pavilion to places such as Fourth Street, the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union and the Booth Library at the 20th annual Take Back the Night.

Jeannie Ludlow, coordinator of women’s studies, said the march was Eastern and Charleston’s way of helping victims of sexual and physical violence to taking back their night.

“We want to reclaim nighttime from fear and violence and come together as a community,” she said.

Erin Walters, director of education at the Sexual Assault Counseling and Information Service (SACIS), said Take Back the Night is also important to minorities, homosexuals or anyone that have been victimized in some way.

Cheryl Mosley, president of Zeta Phi Beta, came with her sorority to march.

“We feel as women it is very important to participate and show our support,” she said.

She said her sorority comes every year and this is her second year attending.

Angie Hunt, member of HOPE and rape survivor, said she will carry what happened to her for the rest of her life, but coming to Take Back the Night eased some of the pain.

“When I first came here 17 years ago, I was overwhelmed by the number of people who cared,” she said.

A speak-out was another highlight of Take Back the Night along with the march, which was open to anyone and took place in front of a fireplace by the Campus Pond Pavilion.

Students came forward to read poems and a few anonymous students came forward and discussed their experiences with rape, whether they or someone they knew was the victim.

One student, Sarah, sang a psalm from the with the lyrics “burning their lies, burning their dreams, she will sing until everyone burns.”

Sarah is a victim of rape.

Ludlow came up to the fire after the march and let it be known that rape is never the victim’s fault.

She talked about a college freshman that came in to the abortion clinic she worked at one day and told her the story of how she was raped.

The woman said she was at a party and followed all the rules of safe partying and still became a victim of rape.

Ludlow said the woman went on about not feeling well and talked about how a man she knew since third grade, who even once dated her best friend, took her home, seemed really nice by helping her into her room and then raped her.

“She eventually dropped out of school because she said ‘I can’t stand that he is in some of my classes’ and he ended up graduating,” she said.

Ludlow made it clear that even though this woman did everything right she still ended up the victim with somebody she thought she could trust.

“Violence is not your fault,” Ludlow said.

Walters also made a speech at the speak out.

She talked about how violence does not usually come out of nowhere.

Walters said when the strong message being sent that rape and sexual assault is OK, men and women alike have to be the ones to stand up and say it is not okay.

One of the men at the event agreed with this notion.

“In situations that men create, they hold the power to either stop or start the inappropriate behavior,” said Marcus Ricci, office manager in the International students and scholar’s office, “We need to put other men on notice that that behavior will not be tolerated.”

Heather Holm can be reached at 581-7942 or at haholm@eiu.edu.

Deanna Wiberg, of Ottawa, holds her candle so Stephanie Guyer, a senior English major, can ignite her vigil candle before the start of the Take Back the Night sexual assault awareness march Thursday. (Eric Hiltner/The Daily Eastern News)

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