THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR

By Nancy Buirski

This opening night screening is SOLD OUT! You can now BUY TICKETS for the ENCORE SCREENING on February 15, 9PM at Jackman Hall (AGO). Click HERE for tickets!

Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother and sharecropper, was gang raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. Common in Jim Crow South, few women spoke up in fear for their lives. Not Recy Taylor, who bravely identified her rapists. The NAACP sent its chief rape investigator Rosa Parks, who rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice. This film exposes a legacy of physical abuse of black women and reveals Rosa Parks’ intimate role in Recy Taylor’s story. An attempted rape against Parks was but one inspiration for her ongoing work to find justice for countless women like Taylor. The 1955 bus boycott was an end result, not a beginning. More and more women are now speaking up after rape. This documetary tells the story of black women who spoke up when danger was greatest; it was their noble efforts to take back their bodies that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and movements that followed. The 2017 Global March by Women is linked to their courage. From sexual aggression on ‘40s southern streets to today’s college campuses and to the threatened right to choose, it is control of women’s bodies that powered the movement in Recy Taylor’s day and fuels our outrage today.

Recy Taylor, a name I know and I think you should know, too – Oprah Winfrey at the Golden Globes

Planting a flag firmly at the intersection of patriarchy, sexism and white supremacy, The Rape of Recy Taylor is a documentary of multiple layers and marvelous gumption. – NY Times

Nothing can prepare you for the emotionally packed ending of the documentary – Huffington Post

A stirring, infuriating marvel – Roger Eibert

It’s essential viewing – The New Yorker