Report IT

Did you know that Angela Shelton Day is coming? It's April 29. At least the mayor of Asheville, North Carolina has dubbed it that. The filmmaker and actress will report her father's abuse of her as a child online and to police on that day to launch Report IT, a website that will allow survivors to voice their stories anonymously and will also encourage them to report to authorities.

According to a fantastic report by Alison Bowen on Womensenews yesterday, rallies are also planned at B&N stores nationwide on April 1 calling for women to report being sexually assaulted and coinciding with the release of Shelton's autobiography, Finding Angela Shelton, published by Meredith Books.

You may recognize Shelton's name. She wrote the incredible and partially autobiographical screenplay Tumbleweeds, which was made into a major motion picture starring Janet McTeer (won the Golden Globe for Best Actress and was nominated for an Academy Award and a SAG Award) and Kimberly J. Brown, and directed by Gavin O'Connor.

She also created the 2001 documentary Searching for Angela Shelton. You may have heard about it. It began as a show she pitched to HBO: Gather all the women with her name in one place, say, Vegas. As Bowen reports in her piece, when Shelton interviewed 40 other Angela Sheltons, she found that 70 percent of them had been physically, sexually, or emotionally abused. And if those odds aren't scary enough, consider this. Not one of the women she interviewed had reported the abuse. And neither had Shelton reported her own abuse.

Thus came Reportitnow.org.
Shelton and PAVE: Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment launched the site in 30 cities last month. Please, check it out, and report it. And thank you, Angela Shelton.

K.