A Moment. A Movement. A Reckoning.

Anti-Violence Professionals Appreciation Week

November 1-7, 2023

It is long past time for those within the anti-violence field to receive their virtual "flowers" and accolades for sustaining a system that saves lives, accompanies survivors on their path to justice and healing, and shifts harmful paradigms to spark culture change.

It has been an even longer wait for this field to acknowledge that the change we seek is also desired within our work. In a time of compounding pandemics and racial brutality, anti-Blackness, classism, erasure, and other off-shoots of white supremacy find space to dwell in a field where its first organizers, activists, and silence-breakers were both enslaved and free Black women. Harriet Jacobs, Celia, Frances Thompson, Lucy Smith, Rebecca Ann Bloom, Lucy Tibbs, Harriet Armor, Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

Because this movement is birthed from the historical trauma of Black violence in America; because these founding Black women, and many others, believed in and/or created frameworks that saw ending all forms of oppression as key to ending violence; because this field holds a legacy of existence for well over 150 years; Because we should not wait a moment longer…

The Swan Center for Advocacy & Research invites all anti-violence professionals, organizations, and institutions to join us November 1-7, 2023, as we congregate across virtual platforms to celebrate the accomplishments of all while unapologetically centering Black expertise. This is a time of acknowledgement, accountability, and action. Join us in this moment.