Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Silent March for Domestic Violence Awareness, Raleigh, NC 10.13.2009

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They came. Men and women, young and old, black, white and in between. Fifty or so of them, all with one purpose. To turn a beacon on the dark corners where domestic violence lives. To clean out the festering, stinking wound that it has left on us as a species. To heal a woman who'd lost her sister, to heal each other, some to heal themselves. On a sunny midday in October, they gathered in front of the county courthouse to march in silent homage to Jammie Shantel Street, a young mother of three gunned down outside her children's day care center. Her boyfriend and father of her youngest child, Daniel Jerome Montgomery stands accused of the murder. Montgomery allegedly turned the gun on himself after shooting Street, but survived and will be formally charged when he leaves the hospital.

"Walk Softly And Carry A Big Message"
Raleigh, NC - October 2009 (Click to embiggen)

But the mood of the group was neither somber, nor grim, nor even angry. They marched with quiet determination, despite the certainty that there would be more marches, more deaths in the future. The Wake County Domestic Violence Task Force organizes one of these "Silent Marches" each time a DV related homicide occurs in Wake County. The mission of the march is to honor the fallen and to heighten public awareness of the scourge of domestic violence. The mission of the marchers, however, is not always so generically defined, and almost never so cleanly described. For some, the motivation is deeply personal. A sister, a grandchild, a friend lost to a senseless tragedy every bit as painful as the one they are remembering publicly today. But whatever motivated them to come here, they came. And Raleigh will know they were here.

If you're looking for other ways to help, read this article: Wednesday Q&A: How Can I Honor DV Awareness Month? Carrie's answer to that question has a list of great suggestions, but I'd like to add a couple of things for anyone who has a blog, a website, an account on FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter or some other social network. And it won't cost you a nickel to do any of them.

• Publish a link to VU on your page/blog: http://violenceunsilenced.com/
• Link to, or better yet, embed the promotional YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wnxaSs4wZY
• Visit and comment on as many of the survivor stories on VU as possible (new stories are published weekly on Monday and Thursday). Give those courageous enough to speak out the validation and support they deserve. Because for every story that's published, there are hundreds that are still ongoing. And someone somewhere is reading her (or his) life story in the words of another.

And if you need any assistance figuring out how to do any of these, feel free to contact me. (My function with VU is mainly tech support, so if you contact Maggie with a tech question she's gonna send you to me anyway.)

Refuse to Not See.

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