Javonda Stanton’s T-shirt is impossible to miss: Pink, glittery cursive bearing the words “violence against women will not be tolerated” pop out against a bright, azure blue background, a mugshot and an inmate’s number.

Stanton created the T-shirt displaying her rapist’s face about 15 years ago after the assault. She made several designs, which she used to wear twice a week. 

“For lack of a ladylike word, it’s quite ballsy,” Stanton said. “But that’s how I felt about surviving.” 

Now, Stanton only breaks the shirt out for special occasions, including yesterday’s second annual “Denim Day” hosted by the City of Jackson’s Office of Violence and Trauma Prevention to raise awareness of sexual violence. 

More than 60 advocates, nonprofit employees and community members participated in the event on the brick garden outside City Hall. Organizations from the FBI’s Community Outreach, Teen Health Mississippi, and the Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault shared resources for victims and survivors, such as information on rape kits, STI testing, while the People’s Advocacy Institute offered a sign-up sheet for upcoming meetings for a new program called Jackson Heals focused on trauma recovery through restorative justice conversations. 

But perhaps the most impactful part of the event came when Stanton and other survivors spoke about their experience working through the mental toll of sexual assault, multiple attendees said. 

“Nobody wants to talk about sexual assault because it’s ugly, and then we want to say sexual assault when, really, we should say rape,” Stanton said. “The word rape just sounds so heinous. Well, it is. The act is heinous.” 

In 2024, the state saw a 27% increase in rape kits sent to the state crime lab thanks to a 2023 law aimed at reducing the persistent testing backlog and create a systems for survivors to track the kits as they’re processed, though the extent of the backlog is still undocumented.

Denim Day originated in 1999 after an Italian court found an alleged rape had likely not occurred because, it concluded in a ruling since overturned, the tight jeans the alleged survivor was wearing could not have been removed without her help. Participants in the international event wear denim in solidarity with and in protest of stigma against survivors.

Keisha Coleman, the director of the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery, said events like this support her goal of bringing together community organizations. 

“One of the most important things is we are bridging community organizations that have been working in silos,” Coleman said. 

The office, which was formed three years ago in the midst of a crime spike in the city, is also working to create a public-facing dashboard that can help Jacksonians understand the extent of crime in Jackson. 

“We are victim advocates, but for the most part, our goal is to focus on the data,” Coleman said. 

Still, Coleman said much of the office’s work has been difficult to quantify. For instance, Coleman, a trauma coach, works with people who have been traumatized by violence. She recently took seven families out to dinner so they could meet each other. 

“We’re just having people call us and say, ‘Hey, I need help,’ or ‘Hey, I’m a mother suffering’ or ‘I’ve received a call to say my daughter was killed, we have to move because of retaliation and I don’t have food,’” she said. “So stuff like that, it’s not tangible.” 

But qualitative impacts matter too, she said. 

“Anytime we can reach one person, we consider it a success,” she said. 

If that’s the goal, Jamesia Wilson Cox’s experience illustrates it was met. 

The counselor and disorder specialist came out on her lunch break to meet people and hear from the speakers, among them an advocate and military veteran from Clinton named Tara Rivers who read a poem about grappling with the reality of being assaulted. 

“Summer months used to be my favorite, but now it’s just another trigger like my 9 millimeter,” Rivers read. 

As she listened, Wilson Cox pulled out her phone and took a selfie. 

That act might seem small to others, but it was meaningful to Wilson Cox. Last year, she was assaulted in her home in Brandon. She said it changed her self-perception and left her feeling “dirty.” She stopped looking in the mirror or taking selfies. 

“I used to be the selfie queen,” she said. 

But day by day, she’s become more comfortable with her image. 

If the city hosts Denim Day next year, Wilson Cox said she hopes to be in a place where she, too, can get up on the stage and speak.