A LONG WALK HOME
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Mission Statement
A Long Walk Home (ALWH) is a national Chicago-based organization based in Chicago that empowers young people to end violence against girls and women.
About This Cause
“One of the most overlooked yet effective ways to create social change is to just believe the stories that girls and young women of color tell us. And since black girls live at the crossroads of gender and racial violence, if we want to empower them, we have to confront and dismantle each system of oppression that affects them." - Co-founders Salamishah Tillet and Scheherazade Tillet, New York Times A Long Walk Home, Inc. (ALWH) is a national Chicago-based art organization that uses art to young people to end violence against girls and women. Through our programs, ALWH trains the next generation of artists and activists who are committed to promoting gender equality and racial justice in their schools, communities, and the country at large. We commit our resources to increase opportunities for girls and young women in our society who are most vulnerable to multiple forms of violence in the Chicago area including low-income, girls and women of color, those with disabilities, and LGBTQI+-identified and gender expansive youth. At ALWH, we engage a Black feminist model of social change which believes that: • Black girls and young women are essential to addressing systemic racism and sexism and advocating for structural change. • Black girls and young women who have experienced racism and gender-based violence are also experts in the movement to end violence against women and girls. • Art is not simply an expression of social change but the key to change itself. • Individual and community healing are essential to achieving social justice. • Spaces and time for care and joy are needed to sustain activism and ongoing organizing. • That our work exists in an ecosystem, and that collaboration and coalition building are required to sustain social movements and make long-term change. As a powerful collective of artists, activists, healers, and scholars, we are one of the foremost organizations to empower Black girls, young women, and the communities in which they live to be free of gender-based and racial violence. We are the only organization in the city of Chicago that offers culturally specific strategies to address dating and sexual violence among Black girls and gender expansive Black youth as well as state violence and police brutality against them and their families. Founded by two African-American sisters, Salamishah and Scheherazade Tillet in 2003, ALWH evolved out of the creation of the Story of Rape Survivor performance (SOARS) produced in 1998 — more than 20 years before the #MeToo movement — to document Salamishah’s journey after she was raped in college and provide rare insight into the arc of healing on which many survivors of color embark. As they toured campuses and communities all over the United States, the Tillet sisters became early trailblazers of our current movement to elevate the voices of rape survivors of color, to educate the public about the epidemic of sexual violence, and to offer an in-depth focus on healing and recovery in the aftermath of trauma. In 2009, ALWH created the Girl/Friends Leadership Institute as a safety net for adolescent girls who live at the intersections of sexism, racism, and other forms of oppression that inhibit their potential and prevent their full participation in society. We respond to these traumas by investing in lives, livelihood, and potential for transformative leadership. As a result, our Girl/Friends have been at the forefront of Chicago's most recent campaigns to end violence against girls and young women, which includes sexual and domestic violence, crimes against queer and gender non-conforming girls, gun violence, and police brutality. ALWH has impacted over thousand of girls, whose work has reached thousands of students, parents, and community members nationwide. In 2021 alone, our work has been featured in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Netflix, CBS News, and ABC News.