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The following article appeared in The Indypendent The Street Harassment Project Holds Rally to Mark Anniversary of Central Park Assaults August 23, 2001 Few can forget the mass sexual assaults against women on June 11, 2000, in the public space of Central Park. In broad daylight, 56 women were doused with water, molested, and stripped of their clothing by a large group of men.� Women who alerted police to the assaults reported being met with indifference.� On June 9th, 2001, the Street Harassment Project held a rally to mark the one-year anniversary of the Central Park assaults and to express our rage at these acts of violence against women. With great turnout and covered on all the major television networks, the rally was a great success. The event featured speakers such as Bridget Moore from Black Grrrl Revolution, Nancy Millar from New York NOW, Anne Peyton Bryant (Central Park attack survivor), Nieves Ayress from Daughters of Rebellion (Hijas de la Rebeldia), Michael-David Gordon of New York Men Against Sexism, and many more.� The Street Harassment Project's Street Theater group, singer Melineh Kurdian and the Radical Cheerleaders all graced the stage with powerful performances about women responding to sexual harassment and violence. The Street Theater Group sends a message to women to support other women in the streets who are being harassed, and calls on men to confront harassers. The Street Harassment Project speakers emphasized that the Central Park assaults were not isolated events, but are related to the harassment and menacing of women by men in public spaces that goes on every day. The rally was in no way a protest of the Puerto Rican Day parade or any aspect of it--the sexist attitudes that caused this incident are spread across every ethnic group, as evidenced by the rapes at Woodstock '99 and the Spring '01 spate of sexual assaults on women by police on Long Island.� Speakers also noted the lack of adequate police response as a statement of the fact that sexual abuse of women is still not taken seriously in our society. The Street Harassment Project is a grassroots feminist group which fights the omnipresent harassment of women by men in the streets and other public spaces such as parks, subways and school buildings. Since becoming active a year ago, we have been publicized in Time Out and Bust magazines, and have received hundreds of phone calls from women thanking the group for bringing attention to the problem of street harassment.� Street theatre, graphics and workshops throughout the city are just a few of the ways we are working to end street harassment.