Since the fall of 1994 Aishah Shahidah Simmons has been the producer, writer,
and director of NO!, a full-length documentary which will expose the
collective silence in the Black community when Black women and girls are raped
or sexually assaulted, physically and/or verbally, by Black men and boys.
NO! will create a sacred space within which Black women and men, outraged
about intra-racial rape and sexual assault, challenge the Black community
to look inward and confront this issue, through their testimonies and art.
Through NO!, Simmons, will break the silence and give voice to countless
numbers of Black women rape and sexual assault survivors whose testimonies,
dances, music, and poetry are rarely seen or heard on celluloid. Women Make
Movies, the only national non-profit women's media organization dedicated
to the production, promotion, exhibition, and distribution of films and videotapes
by and about women, is NO!'s 501 [c][3] fiscal sponsor.
In Spring 1995, recognizing that time was of the essence with the declining
health of Essex Hemphill, the award-winning Black gay poet whose work was
featured in Marlon Riggs' masterpieces Tongues Untied and Black Is…Black Ain't,
Simmons and Tamara L. Xavier, the co-producer and dance coordinator of NO!,
solicited and received the support of Philadelphia-based Black women and men
film/videomakers who, in May and June 1995, donated their time and labor to
shoot three candid testimonies with Black women survivors and warriors--Rosetta
Williams, Queen, and my mother, Gwendolyn Robinson/Zoharah Simmons; and the
late award-winning Essex Hemphill poet performing his poem "To Some Supposed
Brothers."
Essex Hemphill died five months later in November 1995. In March 1997, the
ASTRAEA Foundation was the first foundation to give money towards the making
of NO!. In the summer of 1997, Simmons used the funds received from
ASTRAEA, combined with major donations from feminist activist Inelle Bagwell
and poet/scholar/activist Sonia Sanchez, and donated labor from Kim Mayhorn,
an award-winning editor, to complete an 8 minute and a 20 minute version of
NO! A Work-In-Progress. This video has been screened across the United
States and in several other countries.
Men of all races, nationalities, cultures, religions, classes, and socio-economic backgrounds rape and sexually assault women. I have chosen to take a close look at incest, rape and sexual assault in the community from which I come, the Black community. Therefore, the Black community is the primary target audience for NO!. However, because women of every race, physical ability, religion, sexuality, culture, and socio-economic background are raped and sexually assaulted every single day, NO! will be a documentary that many women will be able to find a connection. This belief in the universality of NO! is based on the fact that Black (African-American/African/African-Caribbean/African-European) women, Asian women, Pacific Islander women, South Asian women, Indigenous women, Arab women, White women, Jewish women, and Latinas have, in various ways, supported the making of the documentary.
According to statistics from the United States Department of Justice, though Black women are 7% of the US population, they are 27% of the rape and sexual assault victims. For every one white woman that reports her rape at least 5 white women do not report their rapes. And yet, for every one African-American woman that reports her rape at least 15 African-American women do not report their rapes. Rape, sexual assault, incest, and domestic violence are atrocities that many Black women have kept and continue to keep silent for fear of retaliation and alienation from many male and female members in their own communities. There have been very few “Stop the Violence” marches and rallies, in the Black community, geared to addressing sexual violence.
In July, August and October 1999, after a four-year hiatus, Simmons was able
to, thanks to funding/in-kind services (Solutions for Progress, Inc., Astraea
Foundation, Valentine Foundation, Bread & Roses Community Fund, Studio
Film & Tape, Audre Lorde Legacy Award of the Union Institute Center for
Women, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Women Make Movies, countless
individuals and several colleges/universities) and the [paid] assistance of
an amazing predominantly Black women crew, reenter into production and persevere
by leaps and bounds. This included filming:
1. the performance of A State of Rage, Simmons’ narrative choreopoem written for 7 women and 1 woman percussionist, ranging in ages from 12 to 50 which moves from rage to meditation to action to healing (Philadelphia, PA);
2. the narrative vignette, based on Simmons’ maternal great-great-great grandmother's life, which will explore the impact of inter-racial and intra-racial rape and sexual assault on the lives of Black women during enslavement and reconstruction (Philadelphia, PA);
3. an interview with Ms. Gwendolyn Robinson/Zoharah Simmons, an African-American feminist Islamic scholar who is an Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Florida-Gainesville. She was sexually assaulted when she was the 1964-1966 project director of the Laurel Project of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (Philadelphia, PA/Gainesville, FL);
4. an interview with Ms. Rosetta Williams, an African-American feminist who is a rape survivor (Philadelphia, PA);
5. an interview with Mr. Michael Simmons, an African-American who is an international human rights activist (Philadelphia, PA);
6. the poetic performance of Ms. Ayanna Traylor, an African-American womanist who is one of the three featured women poets (in addition to the late award-winning Black gay poet Essex Hemphill); The three-featured women poets are all survivors of rape and sexual assault They range in ages from 26-32 and are from Philadelphia, PA, Brooklyn, NY, and Talladega, AL;
7. an interview with Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, an African-American feminist historian who is the founder and director of Spelman College's Research and Resource Center/editor of Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought (Atlanta, GA);
8. an interview with Ms. Audrey Irons, an African-American feminist who is a rape survivor and administrative associate, Spelman College's Women's Resource and Research Center (Atlanta, GA);
9. an interview with Dr. Johnnetta Cole, an African-American feminist who is President Emertia of Spelman College/author of Conversations: Straight Talk with America's Sister President (Atlanta, GA);
10. a roundtable discussion with Constance Gibbs, director of Low Country Rape Crisis Center (Beufort, SC), Vernell Tillman and Carmen Landy, sexual assault service providers, Center for Survivors (Edgefield and Aiken, SC);
11. an interview with Ms. Loretta Ross, an African-American feminist who is the director of the Center for Human Rights Education/the 3rd director of the DC Rape Crisis Center, one of the oldest Rape Crisis Center's in the United States (Atlanta, GA);
12. a group interview with Mr. Sulaiman Nuriddin and Mr. Ulester Douglas of Men Stopping Violence (Atlanta, GA);
13. an interview with Ms. Elaine Brown, former leader of the Black Panther Party and author of A Taste of Power (Atlanta, GA);
14. an interview with Ms. Barbara Smith, Black feminist writer and activist who was the co-founder of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. She is the author/editor of several books including the recently published The Truth That Never Hurts (Albany, NY); and
15. an interview with Mr. John T. Dickerson, Jr., the first African-American male educator at the Bluegrass Rape Crisis Center (Lexington, KY).
