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Chapter ONE

A Hashtag Sparks a

Movement

People typically assume that the #MeToo movement began in
2017 in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. But the
movement was actually founded more than a decade earlier.
It was the brainchild of Tarana Burke, a civil rights activist and
social justice advocate from New York City. In 2006, while living
and working in Selma, Alabama, Burke and her colleagues be-
came aware of a disturbing number of girls and women of color
who had been victims of sexual abuse and violence. These fe-
males needed help and support, as well as a safe place to talk
about what happened without being afraid or ashamed.
At the time, social media was relatively new, and the social
networking platform MySpace was just becoming popular. To
increase the visibility of her work with sexual abuse victims, and
to offer a virtual platform where they could communicate and
support each other, Burke started a MySpace page titled Me
Too—and was astounded at the response. “There was no such
thing as viral back then. But if there was this would be as close
to that as possible,” says Burke.

Within like a week or so, we had so many responses from
women who were like, “Thank you for doing this,” “This
is really amazing,” “How can we be involved,” “We need
help.” And we realized this is bigger than we thought. 8

Burke had no way of knowing that the movement she started
would eventually become a massive global platform for change.

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