STILL I RISE: DENIM DAY

I first understood the weight of clothing the day I read about her. The eighteen-year-old in Italy, the girl who had been promised lessons and instead received violence, whose life was measured in the lines of a courtroom transcript. They called it a legal case, but it was never about law. It was about power, and shame, and the slow, deliberate twisting of blame onto someone who had done nothing wrong. She wore jeans. That was the crime the judges clung to, the evidence they manufactured, the rationale they offered to excuse a man who had no right to touch her.

I remember stopping in the middle of my apartment, holding the book open and feeling my chest tighten. It was absurd, and it was terrifying, and it was the clearest example I had ever seen of how quickly the world can convince you to question yourself. Not just the violence, not just the violation, but the way the world will always search for a reason to place responsibility somewhere other than where it belongs.

Years later, when Denim Day became more than a story, I understood it differently. The jeans were no longer about fashion or casual comfort. They were a shield, a statement, a quiet insistence that clothing does not consent. When I pull them on now, it is not about solidarity for the cameras. It is about standing in the space between memory and outrage, about claiming a small, stubborn piece of justice in a world that rarely hands it out.

I remember the first time I participated. The office was quiet. The ritual was simple. We wore denim. It felt ordinary, pedestrian even, until you realized it was not. Each pair was a refusal. Each pair was an acknowledgment that the world often treats survivors as guilty until proven innocent, that the violence they endured is somehow softened by the clothes they chose. The ritual was absurd in its simplicity and devastating in its truth. It made you feel your own body differently, reminded you of the vulnerability of space and the fragility of security.

There is a tension in Denim Day that does not exist in most commemorations. It is not a march or a festival. It is not performative. You are there, quietly, in your own clothes, and you are asked to carry memory and outrage simultaneously. You are asked to remember the girl in Italy, to remember those countless others whose experiences never make headlines, whose lives are compressed into statistics, whose voices are lost beneath the hum of daily life. You are asked to carry their stories in your own skin, to make them visible through something as ordinary as a pair of jeans.

I have thought about her often since that first day. I think about the way the Supreme Court originally excused her violence. I think about the lawmakers who protested in jeans, not because it was comfortable, but because the absurdity of the claim demanded a response. I think about how long it took for the legal system to correct itself, how long it took for the truth to be acknowledged. And I think about my own role, my own awareness, and the quiet responsibility that comes with recognizing injustice when it is staring you in the face.

Peace Over Violence founded Denim Day in 1991, and each year it grows. Every April 29th, people worldwide put on denim and step into the streets or offices or classrooms carrying a history that feels impossible to hold, yet undeniable. The day is simple, but simplicity does not dilute its power. It is a global acknowledgment that clothing is not an invitation, that blame belongs where it belongs, and that the world owes survivors a measure of respect.

I wear my jeans with a mixture of defiance and remembrance. I wear them for the girl in Italy. I wear them for every survivor who has ever been shamed for the way they exist in the world. I wear them for myself, to remember that outrage is not enough, that memory is not enough, that action is necessary even when it is small and symbolic. The day is a reminder that justice can be slow, but that acknowledgment is the first step. It is a refusal to let absurdity stand.

And yet, there is also intimacy in Denim Day. There is reflection in it. The act of putting on jeans becomes an internal dialogue. I think of my own body, my own experiences of vulnerability, my own moments of fear and silence. I consider how often the world judges what it cannot understand. I remember the countless conversations I have avoided, the feelings I have hidden, the ways I have doubted myself because someone else decided that clothing was evidence. It is uncomfortable. It is necessary.

Denim Day is not about triumph. It is not about closure. It is about acknowledgment. It is about making visible what the world tries to ignore. It is about saying, yes, we remember. Yes, we recognize the wrongs. Yes, we will not allow clothing to ever be used as justification for violence. Each pair of jeans is a small assertion, a quiet rebellion, a statement that we will not look away.

And still, the work remains. Even with awareness, even with campaigns, even with outrage, the culture of victim-blaming persists. Denim Day reminds me that change is incremental and imperfect. It reminds me that each of us carries responsibility for the stories we tell, the assumptions we make, the silences we keep. And it reminds me that, as simple as it seems, a pair of jeans can become an instrument of conscience, a thread connecting individual action to collective memory.

I do not wear my jeans alone. I wear them alongside the voices of women who have spoken, alongside the ones who have not, alongside every act of solidarity that refused to let absurdity go unchallenged. I wear them as a marker of endurance, of refusal, of witness. And in wearing them, I am reminded that stories matter. Actions matter. Clothes, in the right context, can matter too.

The act of remembering is visceral. When I zip the jeans, when I feel the fabric hug my body, I feel the weight of what has been endured. I feel the shame that was never theirs to carry. I feel the necessity of speaking, of acting, of refusing to let the world justify cruelty. Denim becomes a language, and I am fluent in its syntax. Each year, when April 29th arrives, I am reminded that solidarity is not passive. It is active, and it asks something of you. It asks attention. It asks reflection. It asks a willingness to hold the absurdity of injustice in one hand while lifting up the dignity of survivors with the other.

I still think about the girl in Italy. I think about her courage, her fear, and the way the world tried to erase her voice. I think about the judges who made decisions based on an imagined logic. I think about the lawmakers who wore jeans in protest and the ordinary people who joined them, linking memory to action. I think about myself in my own denim, standing in quiet, necessary defiance. And I am reminded, year after year, that it is not enough to remember. You must also act. You must bear witness. You must refuse to let the world convince you to doubt what you know to be true.

Denim Day is more than a story. It is a call. It is a reminder that clothing never asks for consent. It is a lesson in listening, in observing, in acknowledging that injustice is not abstract. It is personal. It is embodied. And when I leave my house in jeans, when I carry that memory into my day, I am reminded that silence is not neutral, that inaction is a choice, and that every small act of remembrance can be a thread in the larger work of justice.