Tarana Burke is a 45-year-old that started the Me Too movement in 2006. The Me Too movement raises awareness for sexual harassment, abuse, and assault. 

Burke was born on September 12, 1973, in The Bronx, New York. She didn’t have the best life growing up. Money was always a problem in her family and worst of all she was raped and sexually assaulted throughout her childhood and teenage years. Burke’s mom was involved in the community and encouraged Burke to do the same. Burke now has a daughter that was born in 1987, Kaia Burke, who she has raised as a single mother. 

Burke attended Alabama State University and transferred to Auburn University where she graduated. Burke has worked in many jobs that are for a cause. For example, the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement, which is a movement that allows young people to learn the benefits of setting goals, learning about cultures, self-development and many other things. She also worked at The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute. She also got the opportunity to be a consultant for the Oscar-nominated movie Selma.

The Me Too movement started while Burke was working on another nonprofit she founded in 2003 called Just Be which is for the well-being of young African American women.  Burke was having a conversation with a young girl and the girl said that she had been sexually abused. Burke has had so many of these type of conversations with women and she realized that she always said “me too” whenever someone told her they had been abused in any way that she was. 

Burke tweeted it out and that’s when her movement went viral in 2017. Famous people started to retweet about abuse towards women. This information spread even faster and raised more awareness in a way she would have never imagined.