At the Dark End of the Street
¬ At the Dark End of the Street Reflection
Rape is a crime that not only affects the victim for the moment, but it shatters their entire life. In general, most women never fully recover from being a victim of rape; in our case, a black women. There are all different types of women who are raped each day, but there tends to be a specific profile for the most frequent rape victims. In At the Dark End of the Street, by Danielle L. McGuire, black women are raped, but the men who raped them are not usually heavily punished. However, black men are often accused of raping white women. The absurd thing is that the black men that are accused of rape are heavily punished. This book also discusses how the black community united and formed some sort of resistance against their offenders.
This book started out with chapter 5, which introduced a rape incident of a black female, Betty Jean Owens. This rape incident occurred on May 2nd, 1959, and was committed by four white men; William Collinsworth, Ollie Stoutamire, Patrick Scarborough, and David Beagles. Initially, these four white men formed a pact and was determined to go out and to get a black girl to party all night. When the four men kidnapped the black girl, they ordered her friends, which were a part of Florida African American University, to leave them immediately. After the rape incident, a small group in the FAMU planned to organize a march to the city hall, protesting about black womanhood. During the protest, signs were everywhere regarding black womanhood. There was one sign that I was really interested in. The sign said "It could have been YOUR sister, mom, or wife" (166). That quote is a really strong message, because it is asking the whites to put themselves in the victim's shoes. If they do, then there would be equal treatment amongst black and white criminals.
About the same time as the FAMU protest, a black called Mack Charles Parker was accused of kidnapping and raping a twenty-four year old white woman. Just two days before his trial, Mack Charles Parker was lynched by a few white men. On May 4th, 1959, his body