Voices of a Movement: Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence

DePaul students and faculty are working with members of the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV) to create an oral history of this social movement.  The project includes research on a collection of files that document the history of this organization within the broader context of the statewide and national struggle against domestic violence during the decades of ICADV's existence (1978-present).  ICADV historical records are now permanently archived in DePaul University's Richardson Library Special Collections Archives.  This project provides DePaul students with opportunities to understand and experience direct links between academic scholarship, community activism and social justice.

Founding members have shared their memories about the impact of Illinois' movement to eradicate domestic violence:

"The main reason the coalition was formed was to bring together different service providers so that we could work in coalition, in collaboration, as a collective. I think that was its main function. Having said that was sort of its function, its purpose was to enhance services for victims of domestic violence in a context of empowerment of women, and to hold systems accountable and to hold perpetrators accountable for responding properly to domestic violence."

"One of the things that people learned was that they could disagree and still work toward a common goal."

"Working closely with victims, and then moving into doing community training, and talking with police and training them in crisis intervention techniques, and then doing more education, I really began to see how violence against women underlies so much of what goes wrong for women in this country."