Beginning with the author's own courageous account of being raped, and weaving in the multiple stories of ten other women, including the stories of the author's own family's response, Charlotte Pierce-Baker's Surviving the Silence becomes a full chorus that sings of black women's survival. Also included are the voices of black men -- those who have supported black women rape survivors. By sharing the male point of view, Pierce-Baker dispels the myth that the black man is exclusively the perpetrator of rape in the Americas.