From Brussels to Leeds, San Francisco, Delhi: The global march of Reclaim the Night

Abstract

In this chapter, I will outline the herstory of the RTN protest and its European roots. I have gone back through the archives to navigate the path the protest has taken, from its inspiration in Brussels to West Germany and then to the UK in Leeds in 1977. This path is not without twists and turns and I shall also endeavour in this chapter to explore some of the controversies that surround the beginnings of RTN, namely the charge that the march is racist. I will also tackle the assumption that RTN began in Leeds influenced purely by the murderous actions of serial killer Peter Sutcliffe. There were many reasons why the march began where and when it did, and it followed the example of international feminist activism as well as feminist theorising and organising on rape in the UK which was burgeoning in the mid-1970s. I will now take a look back at that period and at the start of our most recent feminist activist past against rape and sexual violence.