April 1 was Black Woman Heal Day, an international movement started here in Madison last year to increase awareness, healing and prevention of sexual abuse of black women around the world.

It has also spread to the UW-Madison campus where women from the community and students united Friday to empower themselves and each other.

“I want them to be reminded or maybe for the first time realize that healing is possible,” said the founder of Black Woman Heal Day, Lilada Gee.

Gee hopes that healing will come for women by realizing their own power.

Lilada Gee
Lilada Gee

“You hope that you won’t have to use it but just to feel like you have a sense of safety and you can handle yourself,” she said.

Finding out just how strong they are, on Friday UW-Madison students and women from Madison learned how to protect themselves in case of an attack.

“We want to show that you can help yourself, you can protect yourself. You don’t have to rely on a guy,” said UW-Madison student Mehert Morrison.

“Sometimes as a black woman you are overlooked, you are invisible, you feel like you have no worth. I think for women that are in that space to know no matter what you have been through, what you have experienced, your life has purpose, your life has meaning and that you are able to overcome,” said self-defense participant Tracy Smith.

According to the National Violence Against Women, for every black woman who reports rape, 15 others do not. Those statistics are just one reason why Gee has made it her mission to give women around the world support by creating a day focused on women supporting each other.

“So often as black women, we really have to play around with the ideology of a strong black woman, being the angry black woman, but we don’t get to be the black woman that needs to be healed,” she said.

It’s not just about the physical power, it’s also about building strength from within.

“Many times when you have experienced abuse and trauma, you feel very isolated. Today you don’t. You feel very ashamed; today you don’t. It’s like, black woman heal, we are in this together. We are doing this and we are standing together and we are breaking out of the darkness and the secrets,” Gee said.

Gee hopes the Black Woman Heal chapter on the UW campus will be a model for other college campuses. Friday, Gee also spoke to students throughout the school district to encourage young girls to know their worth.

Twenty-five states and 10 countries also participated through events held on social media.