Take Back the Night - Revolution Rooted in Love

Our Theme:
Our theme is ​‘Rev­o­lu­tion Root­ed in Love’. This year, SACHA will be return­ing to the roots of Take Back the Night, to hon­our the event’s ori­gins and dream togeth­er where we can grow from here. This event began as a protest against the pow­ers that threat­en our safe­ty in pub­lic spaces, par­tic­u­lar­ly walk­ing the streets at night. In 2022 we take back those streets as a col­lec­tive, and proud­ly demon­strate that we deserve to exist safe­ly in any and all spaces. All acts of rev­o­lu­tion stem from love, and ours is no excep­tion. We do this for com­mu­ni­ty and for our­selves. We are ris­ing against all the ways we’ve been trimmed down, cre­at­ing a world of full­ness, a place to thrive, bloom, and flour­ish. We are ever grow­ing, and always root­ed in love.

Acces­si­bil­i­ty and COVID Safe­ty: For the first time since the start of the pan­dem­ic we are gath­er­ing in per­son again. We are SO excit­ed for this oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er and share in the mag­ic of TBTN. We also want this to be a space that is safe for all com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and acces­si­ble to dis­abled, immuno­com­pro­mised, or oth­er­wise COVID-19 high-risk folks. TBTN is all about assert­ing our rights to be safe and so for the safe­ty of all of our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers we ask that all par­tic­i­pants attend­ing this year wear masks dur­ing the event. 

(more infor­ma­tion about acces­si­bil­i­ty will con­tin­ue to be added here)

TBTN Offi­cial Art­work: The incred­i­ble art­work for TBTN 2022 was cre­at­ed by artist Nicole Dumont. She cap­tured the theme so beau­ti­ful­ly! Read more about her and her art­work below:

Artist Bio: Hamil­ton-born Nicole Dumont is a grad­u­ate stu­dent by day, and an artist by night. She takes inspi­ra­tion from the nat­ur­al world, and works with both dig­i­tal and tra­di­tion­al art medi­ums to bring por­traits and land­scapes to life. Nicole uses art to cel­e­brate her queer iden­ti­ty, and loves oppor­tu­ni­ties to mix art & activism.

About the Art: I love the theme of ​“Rev­o­lu­tion Root­ed in Love” for TBTN this year. I believe we need to over­throw the oppres­sive cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem we live under to cre­ate a world that tru­ly val­ues human life, love, and com­pas­sion. I formed this design around the cen­tre woman with her hands raised togeth­er — this pose is a ref­er­ence to the dance that accom­pa­nies the fem­i­nist Chilean protest song ​“A Rapist in Your Path” against sex­u­al vio­lence and vic­tim-blam­ing. But this woman is not alone, she is sup­port­ed by her com­mu­ni­ty & the lega­cy of activists before her, sym­bol­ized by the roots. The flow­ers that crown and sur­round the fig­ures rep­re­sent love that keeps these bonds alive.

Quote Cho­sen by Artist: ​“eradicat[ing] patri­ar­chal dom­i­na­tion is a strug­gle root­ed in the long­ing to make a world where every­one can live ful­ly and freely, then we know our work to be a ges­ture of love. Let us draw upon that love to height­en our aware­ness, deep­en our com­pas­sion, inten­si­fy our courage and strength­en our com­mit­ment.” — bell hooks

TBTN T‑Shirts: Shirt Pre-Sales are now over! But we will still be sell­ing shirts on the day of while sup­plies last! Each shirt is $22 and pro­ceeds go to sup­port­ing our work with sur­vivors at SACHA! 

Vol­un­teer­ing at TBTN: Vol­un­teers want­ed! Join us Sep­tem­ber 10^th for a full day of essen­tial event train­ing, in prepa­ra­tion for #TBTN2022 on Sep­tem­ber 15^th. Train­ing includes anti-racism and anti-oppres­sion, de-esca­la­tion, event logis­tics, and more! Appli­ca­tions will be accept­ed until Sep­tem­ber 7^th. CLICK HERE for more infor­ma­tion and the appli­ca­tion form 💖 TBTN would­n’t be pos­si­ble with­out amaz­ing volunteers! 

Gen­der Inclu­sion: This year TBTN is an event for peo­ple of all gen­ders, an event for all sur­vivors. Many peo­ple, regard­less of gen­der can­not walk at night with­out the fear of being a tar­get of street harass­ment. We are going back to our roots to take to the streets and demand that we deserve to be safe while out walk­ing at night. But a #Rev­o­lu­tion­Roote­dInLove is also about growth. And we have grown to under­stand that sex­u­al vio­lence and street harass­ment dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly effect peo­ple who expe­ri­ence var­i­ous forms of oppres­sion, not just misog­y­ny. And we have lis­tened to trans, Two-Spir­it, and non-bina­ry com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers tell us that the ways TBTN has been gen­dered in the past has made the night unsafe for them. We all deserve safe­ty, and no sur­vivor should ever have to feel alone. And so on Sep­tem­ber 15^th, we march, ALL of us, we march! Because we all have a role to play in end­ing sex­u­al vio­lence and togeth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty we will get there.

Please read more about gen­der and #TBTN2022 here: www​.sacha​.ca/​b​l​o​g​/​T​B​T​N​-​g​ender

We are also soon to be announc­ing a vir­tu­al learn­ing and com­mu­ni­ty con­ver­sa­tion space that will be hap­pen­ing in advance if TBTN where you can come to under­stand more about why this deci­sion was made and about the role peo­ple of all gen­ders can play in end­ing sex­u­al violence.

Event Sched­ule:

Begin­ning at Hamil­ton City Hall Fourcourt 

6:00 – 8:00pm WE GATH­ER — Com­mu­ni­ty Tables, Live Music, Indige­nous Market

8:00 – 8:20pm WE RAL­LY — Speech­es and Prac­tic­ing Our Chants

8:20 – 9:20pm WE MARCH (see route below)

9:20 — 9:45 Gifts and Goodbyes! 

Hash­tags: We will be using #TBTN2022 #Rev­o­lu­tion­Roote­dInLove and #TBT­Nrev­o­lu­tion to help you find all of our event con­tent this year. And we would love to see your posts about the event too!