When Tarana Burke first coined the rallying cry #MeToo, she wasn't trying to ignite a Hollywood-driven national conversation about sexual assault and harassment. She was trying to atone for a moment in which she felt she let someone down.

Speaking at Roger Williams University on Wednesday, Feb. 13, as part of RWU’s year-long series, “Talking About Race, Gender and Power” and the President’s Distinguished Lecture Series, Burke talked about the origins of #MeToo, what it is, what it is not, and how to ensure longevity in a movement that gained traction in the here-today-gone-tomorrow world of social media.

In her early 20's and fresh out of college, Burke was working with young girls through the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement, facilitating conversations that would routinely turn to topics of sexual violence. Following one such conversation, Burke was approached by a girl, about 12 or 13, whom she refers to as Heaven in her retellings of the story.

"She was my special — that one kid, if you work with kids you know what I mean — she followed me everywhere," said Burke. "This beautiful baby came to to me to release this thing she had been holding onto. Something about her stepfather."

Burke was overwhelmed in the moment and didn't know what to say. She shut down, and sent the girl away, telling her to go talk to another adult. It's a moment that Burke would spend the ensuing years regretting. "I felt so bad," she said. "At the very least I wanted to say 'me too' but I was so paralyzed I couldn't get those words out."

Burke still regrets the moment, but in the past 5 months, she has become comfortable sharing this story, and while she always felt that moment was her biggest failure, she is now able to look at it differently. "It wasn't a failure," she said. "It was a catalyst that led to something much bigger than I ever imagined."

Born and raised in the Bronx in a family that included a Garveyite grandfather and black nationalist mother, Burke was well-versed in the politics behind the movement, but, as she said, "I didn't have the grounding to take that knowledge and work in service of my community." But her fate found her at age 14, in the form of the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement, a group founded by Civil Rights leaders to groom the leaders of tomorrow — and the same group she would be working with when she had her #MeToo moment. Her earliest success as an activist and community organizer came not long after, as she and her peers protested a Trump-financed witch-hunt of 5 young men who were accused of attacking a woman in the infamous 1989 Central Park Jogger case. (Those young men would serve between 7 and 13 years in prison before a confession and reexamination of DNA evidence exonerated them.) In 2014, the so-called "Central Park 5" were awarded a settlement of upwards of $40 million for false imprisonment and civil rights violations.

After college, Burke was living in Selma, Alabama and witnessing a disturbing trend among the girls and young women with whom she worked. She and her colleagues had created a program called "Just Be," aimed at building the self-esteem of girls of color in the community, but there was an undeniable underlying current in their lives. "We were inundated with stories of sexual violence that [the girls] didn't know was sexual violence because it was so normalized," Burke said. "This just…knocked me off my square."

Burke had found her focus. "I had never before organized around gender-based violence. I was surrounded by activists and survivors, but we didn't talk about it," she said. They decided to transform the mission of Just Be, and their first focus was on language. They needed to give girls the language to articulate what was happening to them.

Fast forward to 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano used the #MeToo hashtag following the accusations of sexual harassment and assault made against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Nobody was more surprised than Burke to find herself at the center of this story. “You never know how timing is going to work,” she said. “I am just grateful to have the opportunity to elevate the conversation.”

But while the attention given #MeToo has opened an unimaginable number of doors (and Burke admits getting an invitation to attend the Golden Globes with Michelle Williams was pretty awesome, too) she doesn't want the movement to lose its focus. In the inevitable backlash, the mission of #MeToo has become somewhat obscured in the media and popular culture, and Burke wants to be clear that there are a few misconceptions. For one, #MeToo is not about taking down powerful men, noting that it was their own corporate culture and the desire to not be seen as compliant that has led to firings in the media and other industries. It was also never intended to be about sexual harassment in the workplace, but rather about gender-based violence.

Burke also pointed out that it's not just about women — particularly "famous, white cisgender women." Women, she admits, are overwhelmingly the victims, but #MeToo is for all survivors of sexual violence.

Finally, Burke was emphatic that #MeToo is not a social obligation. "You don't have to tell your story," she said. "There is no obligation to stand up. We are fighting something that takes away people's rights to make decisions for themselves. It's your process and you do not have to participate."

What #MeToo is about, at the heart of Burke's intention, is making it safe for survivors to speak their truth, beginning not with Hollywood, but with the most vulnerable among us. "We've already learned that whole trickle-down thing doesn't work," she said.

So what's next for #MeToo?

"I don't move at the speed of pop culture," said Burke. "What do I want to do with this moment? The same thing we've always done. Create something more personal."

With that in mind, Burke is working to create an online community where survivors can go to heal, and concerned citizens can learn action steps to take this movement to their own communities. "Ask around. What's the policy [on sexual violence] at your neighborhood school? What legislation is going on in your community and state? We're building this site to enable people. I tried to avoid this issue — I am not a superhero," Burke said.

"I just can't look at injustice and not do anything."