You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience

Tarana Burke (1973-present) is a Bronx-born, American activist and founder of the #MeToo Movement. Burke grew up in a low-income family in a housing project, and experienced sexual violence and abuse in childhood. Through the encouragement of her mother, young Burke joined the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement, a youth activist organization. Within this community of fellow activists, Burke tackled issues in her community such as police brutality and housing inequality and developed her commitment to social justice.

Burke attended Alabama State University and Auburn University at Montgomery. As a college student, she organized protests and spoke with the press about issues of equality, based in her work with the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement. Burke moved to Selma, Alabama, to work with survivors of sexual violence and started Just Be, a nonprofit organization that provided support for Black female teenagers. When a young girl named Heaven told Burke about her experiences with sexual abuse, Burke later regretted that she had not shared her own experiences with Heaven. Burke felt connected to the stories of sexual violence and abuse of the young Black women she worked with. Just Be focused on empowering Black girls and emphasizing wellness. The #MeToo Movement was born out of the stories and survival of the girls Burke worked with, and it gained wider traction when actress Alyssa Milano encouraged using #metoo as a Twitter hashtag for sharing stories of harassment or assault. Thousands of people replied, including many individuals outside of the entertainment industry. Milano’s tweet was an echo of the work Burke had started a decade earlier and brought a spotlight to a larger discussion about the prevalence of sexual violence and harassment targeting women.

In a 2018 Time Magazine essay, Burke credits the viral hashtag of 2017 for plunging her into a very different life of “red-carpet events, magazine covers, and television experiences” (Burke, Tarana. “What ‘Me Too’ Made Possible.” Time Magazine, 2018). While this was a challenge for her, she recognized this as an opportunity to enact change. She became a global leader in the discussion about sexual violence. Burke developed the theory empowerment through empathy; she suggests that identifying and connecting with the stories of individuals with sexual trauma helps to break the myth that they are alone. When people are not able to identify with a person’s experiences, Burke suggests replacing “me too” with “I believe you,” emphasizing the importance of believing victims of sexual violence.

Burke’s career as an activist is robust. In 2008, Burke moved to Philadelphia to work with Art Sanctuary Philadelphia and other nonprofit organizations. She was a consultant for the 2014 film Selma and served as Senior Director of Girls for Gender Equity in Brooklyn. Burke won 2017 Time Magazine Person of the Year and was one of Time Magazine’s 2018 Most Influential People. In 2019, she won the Sydney Peace Prize and Harvard Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award. In 2021, Burke wrote Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement, a memoir of her life as an activist.