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Charlotte Pierce-Baker is an author, academic and research professor of English and Women's Studies at Duke University. She is also a rape survivor. In her powerful book, Surviving the Silence: Black Women's Stories of Rape (W.W. Norton & Company, 1998), Charlotte weaves together the experiences of dozens of black women who have lived through rape, many speaking about the violence done to them for the first time.
She also writes movingly of the black men who have helped and supported rape survivors, including her own husband. Upon first hearing Charlotte say "I was raped," he took her face in his hand and said "I loved you before, I love you now, I'll love you forever." It was the beginning of her journey towards healing.
Today, years later, Charlotte says, "I am now able to articulate without fear, guilt or shame that I am a black woman who has survived rape. I am forever changed, and this realization no longer paralyzes me. Once I allowed myself to feel the fury that anyone would burglarize my home, steal my possessions, rob my body and wound my soul then - and only then - was I able to begin my own grieving and healing."
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