Take Back the Night symbolizes a vast array of significance and magnitude for each individual. Every year, in each community, Take Back the Night manifests itself through the diverse experiences of it's contemporaries. The Take back the Night March has existed for decades, and began as a total empowerment tool for women to gain the strength back that they felt was jeopordized by the intensity of violence against women. Take Back the Night at NAU still possesses many of these same motivations.

     Many of us women innately look under our cars and in the back seat before committing to get inside. We may check behind and around ourselves when walking alone at night. Some believe precautions like the escort service on campus are necessary because we need protection from potential attackers lurking in the darkness. These actions are pursued in the name of common sense and a level of safety we all hope to maintain. What is often overlooked and too rarely acknowledged is the horrible reality that those closer to us, even those we may love, have much greater potential for proliferating this violence than is often recognized. Over 80% of sexual assaults are committed by our aquaintances and loved ones. When examined as a big picture, these facts can be overwhelming.

     Yet this is where Take Back the Night becomes monumentally important. As individuals, we do not have to accept the reality presented by society, and as activists working together, we can begin to change, in both obscure and obvious ways, the world and community in which we make our lives. Ghandi said, "We are the change we must see in the world," and we feel that this fire is at the heart of Take Back the Night as proactive, positive and imperative advancement toward resocialization.

     We are making an intense effort to increase male involvement in Take Back the Night, not only because men are victims of violence as well, but because their support and passion for the cause on behalf of women is vital to the resocialization process. The violence that occures mainly against women is not just a female concern, but a human concern. The alleviation of this violence is a cooperative human responsibility.

     Some believe that creating an entirely new perspective on the meaning and impact of violence is an impossible task, and that mass education and change may never occur. Take Back the Night valiantly stands in the face of these cynics and melts away the foundations of their fear. The mere fact that Take Back the Night exists and has remained so strong for so long is a statement that a new reality is on the horizon and that we are marching toward it together.