Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement

by Tarana Burke

“I’m supposed to just find money for you to fly to Alabama, just like that, because you decided to pick up and go away?” And then she started chuckling, but not because she was amused. It was more of a hmph mixed with yeah right. I stayed quiet. I knew to just let this play out.

“Okay, Tarana,” she said, shaking her head and sighing. “We’ll see. I’m not making promises because I was not budgeting for this.” I left quickly and disappeared into my room. Hot tears came. Why is she like this? It felt as if she enjoyed keeping me in limbo.

Like she got some power out of knowing I was hanging in the balance, knowing I was waiting for her approval or denial. Didn’t she want me to go to college? Wasn’t she glad I had found a way to go with minimal cost to her? How is she not just happy for me? Why ca...

“See what’s gonna happen?!” He seemed incredulous, something he rarely was. “Ya mammy said all you needed was a plane ticket. What else you need?”

Then it clicked. My mom had done that thing she did where she’d show me no enthusiasm, then would go and brag to him about it. It had always made me feel like a pawn in their weird game, but now I couldn’t help tentatively smiling, knowing my mom had bragged about this.

“Oh, well, that’s nothing. I got that,” he was all too anxious to inform me. “Please! What else you need? Clothes, books, new pair of shoes? What?” I studied his face with caution and curiosity. Our relationship had evolved some, but not this much. I had seen him bait and switch my mom like this with fake excitement that he’d turn off just as she joined him in it.

In less than a week, I was set and ready to go. It was the first time I had ever been on a plane, but that part felt insignificant in comparison to the bigger adventure of college.

Everything I had was riding on this next chapter. No one knew me. No one knew my secrets. It was yet another chance at reinvention. Whoever I was when I stepped onto that campus was who I would be for the rest of my life, and I was dying to find out who that person was.

In keeping my secrets I had inadvertently trapped some of the best parts of myself. I wanted so desperately to be free—to lean into...

Nothing I experienced in 21C had prepared me for life at an HBCU in the Deep South. I was no longer surrounded by young, hopeful leaders looking to uplift their communities.

“New York, right? You gotta be from New York!” He didn’t even wait for my response. “Oh, I’m Fred, but everyone calls me Boston because—guess why?” He pointed at me with a big, silly, open-mouth grin as if queuing me to fill in the blank. “Cuz you from Philly,” I threw back at him, and he cracked up laughing. His laughter was from his gut. It was loud and infectious, and it took less than thirty seconds before I was caught up in it and laughing too.

None of that mattered, though.

I was a dark-skinned, loud-mouthed Black girl, and how dare I be visible and opinionated or anything that rubbed up against what white folks told my folks was acceptable. These insults were meant to force me back into my place. It was the cleaner, nicer version of “You got a lotta mouth for an ugly bitch.”

I didn’t want to be tripped up by the first dusty dude with old, wack insults. This cornball wasn’t the only one who had decided to reinvent himself in this new place. I knew and respected Mount Vernon dudes. It wasn’t where he was from.

Every bone in my body knew he was a “herb.” I could probably end his college career by taking it straight to his chin. Instead I screamed back, “Call me whatever the fuck you want, nigga, as long as you know I’m still Number One!”

It was a reference to one of BDP’s most famous songs, and it was probably lost on some of the peo...

When he saw me on the yard after that, it was always head nods and pounds. I had stared down one of my demons and won.

One night, the crew was hanging out on the lawn, shooting the shit. It came up that I’d never had a drink before,

I didn’t like the idea of not having all my faculties. I always wanted to have my wits about me in case something popped off.

In college I could be the life of the party without getting drunk, and often people didn’t realize that I hadn’t been drinking.

I learned two things: that I could go from a happy to a mean drunk in a second and that I was safe with this crew.

I had set out to reinvent myself, but it turned out that I didn’t have to start from scratch. I just had to dust myself off, because the best parts were already there.

now I was a new person. A leader. And so when my sister leaders poured their hearts out, I listened, I cried, I comforted, I sometimes shrank away—but I never shared. My 21C family knew what I wanted them to know about me.

she loudly whispered, “I need to talk to you.” I felt my pulse quicken. I knew what she needed to talk about, and something in me—everything in me—couldn’t have that conversation. I mouthed back “Okay!” but in my mind I was already figuring out ways to get out of it. By the late afternoon it was obvious that I was avoiding her.

The week was almost over, but there was no way I could keep this up for the rest of the time she was there. I didn’t even fully understand why I was avoiding her, or at least I wouldn’t let myself say it out loud in my head.

This young girl, who reminded me so much of myself, was putting me right back where I didn’t want to be—so I cut her off midsentence.

“Okay!” I must have said it more loudly than I thought because it clearly startled her. “Okay, Heaven, this is not my area. You need to talk to Ms. Malika.”

Heaven’s voice had softened, and I could tell she was trying to understand what was happening. She was trying to understand my reaction to her story.

“The one with the headwrap. I’ll show you. She can help you better than me, okay?” I had already started physically moving away from her. I was good at moving away. Getting away. From this. All of this. I always got away.

But Heaven had not met me as an adult who ran away from her. She had met me as an adult who ran toward her. Who embraced her. Who told her she was family and that she loved her. “Ms. Tee?” She sou...

As she disappeared into the crowd I saw her posture change. It was as if the armor we had worked to chip away was materializing again before my eyes. I knew I was wrong. I also knew I was terrified. I was supposed to be the one changing lives. I was supposed to be leading by example and showing them what was possible when you stepped into your potential. And there I was, a fraudulent “after” picture.

I didn’t want to do what I had done. I didn’t expect a twelve-year-old to knock me off my square. I had been compartmentalizing and prioritizing my thoughts and emotions for many years at this point.

Inside of five minutes, this child was threatening to undo the order I had created. While she was simply trying to lean into what I had promised her—family, connection, love—I was desperately trying to run away from all she reminded me of: betrayal, loss, shame.

She knew what she was about to say to me, but there was no fear in her eyes. Instead, she looked relieved. I wondered where that courage came from. How had she managed to do the thing that I had still not figured out how to do with a head start almost double her twelve short years? I wondered how, at the very least, I had not been able to meet her at the apex of her courage.

In my early organizing training, our elders told us that to be an effective organizer you had to meet folks where they were. I had to find what was common between me and the folks I was trying to reach, and then let them know what skin I had in the game and how my work would help meet their most basic needs.

It wasn’t the details of what she experienced that most resonated with me. It was the feeling it left her with. The confusion, the questions, the anger, and the sadness. It was the need for a way out or a way forward.

it was like someone else was whispering it into my ears. Not me, Tarana, who was standing there desperately trying to be desensitized, but another version of me. One that was saying, Tell her, she should know. Let her know what this feels like. Share yourself. Be who you said you are.

And then it was just that one thing on a loop. Tell her it h...

wisdom of our elder Uncle Ted, who cautioned us never to lie to the young leaders. He said sometimes you may have to hold back for their own sake, but don’t ever lie. He explained that young people could sniff out deceit and inauthenticity like bloodhounds, and once they caught wind of it, there wasn’t much you could do to turn it around.

He said your credibility is your capital with young folks and you have to safeguard it.

I slowed my breathing as best I could and felt the words inching their way from the pit of my stomach up toward the back of my throat, where they stopped. It felt like I might choke on them. I commanded myself to keep breathing. The words were almost there. I opened my mouth and they crept out, one small syllable at a time.

I was raped. They molested me. I didn’t want it. I didn’t like it. I’m sorry.

These words. My truth.

It was a truth my mother never asked for. It was a truth none of my family or friends ever knew. It was a truth no one was there to validate. It was a truth I ran from for so very long.

The roaming hands of boys who didn’t give a fuck that they didn’t have permission to touch. The anger of men who didn’t understand why I didn’t want to give them my number or respond to their catcalls. Or the violent betrayal of those who would rather rob me of my innocence than take care of me.

Finding the way to joy, peace, abundance, health and balance requires an examination and evaluation of everything you cherish. In the midst of your evaluation, the Holy Spirit will step in and separate that which is false from that which is true; that which is necessary from that which no longer serves any purpose in your life.

Separation from that which is familiar and cherished is frightening. Yet the Holy Spirit is a spirit of light which will reveal the darkness of things you have held on to. When the darkness is revealed, what you once cherished will look different! In some cases, it will act different! The truth is nothing is different. In the process of evaluation, the presence of the Holy Spirit gives you the ability to see things in a new light. Hopefully that light will set you free.

It wasn’t until later that night, when things had calmed down, that Kaia told me what happened backstage. Malik had come up and stood next to where the kids were standing, on the side closest to Kaia. When Kaia asked Princess to scoot down because Malik was standing too close, he also scooted down, staying a breath away from Kaia.

He then bent down and whispered that he could “show her something that she had never seen before” and began to rub up and down on Kaia’s thigh. It was at that point that full-on panic kicked in and both Kaia and Princess ran over to get me.

I left her office feeling silenced, and deeply unsettled. The feeling crept up on me like a small drumbeat, a tapping hidden somewhere in my spirit. I couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but I recognized it. I had definitely felt this feeling while growing up, but I had ignored it then because it scared me. This time I took note of it. I sat in my car outside the law office perfectly still, allowing myself to sit in the feelings that were rushing through me.