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God had plans for Victor Rivers. He's sure that's what kept him from killing the man who made him "live in terror for 15 years" as a child.
He is affiliated with the Washington, D.C.-based National Network to End Domestic Violence and will be in Green Bay on Thursday and Friday to speak as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Week events. He will appear al 7 p.m. Thursday at the University Union, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and again at 7 p.m. Friday at the Brown County Courthouse as the keynote speaker for the Take Back the Night Rally. He's been telling his story in such forums for two years, he said, "to put a male face on domestic violence. People think domestic violence is strictly a women's issue. But if children are involved, this is what they witness." Rivers said he grew up in a home "where domestic violence took place on a level of torture." He was born in Cuba, then emigrated with his family to Chicago. He left there at age 7 when the family relocated to Los Angeles. His father terrorized his mother and four children. She couldn't seek help because she didn't speak English. Finally at age 12, Rivers went to the police "and undressed in front of them. I was covered in bruises, welts and burns. They said I could sign a complaint and they'd go talk to my dad." In the mid-1960s, he said, such violence was considered "a family matter." "My option was to kill him, and I seriously, considered it," Rivers said. "Today that's the staggering statistic: 68 percent of boys ages 12 to 18 incarcerated for murder are there because they killed their mom's attacker." Rivers continued to suffer abuse at his father's hand. His father kidnapped the children and moved them to Miami. It took months before his mother found them, but then his father got custody: "The abuse got worse. Mom had been the buffer zone. She threw herself into the line of fire." Rivers was finally bigger than his father at age 15, and, after a physical confrontation, he left home and lived on the streets for a short time. Friends from high school found him and he lived with seven different families until he graduated, president of his class. "People stepped in to intervene at a time when most think a 15-year-old boy is beyond hope," Rivers said. His story is proof "that at any point, someone can turn their life around if they're given some love. Women, too, can lift themselves up and have a successful and happy life." He had a football scholarship to Florida State University and spent two years as a free agent with the Miami Dolphins before following a high school friend to L.A. where he has played opposite Antonio Banderas in "The Mask of Zorro," among other roles. Today, he's happily married and the father of a 6-year-old son "who knows that I had a mean daddy, and I'm trying to make the world a safer place to live in." Rivers hopes his message will help protect women and children. Karen Doro, chairwoman of the Take Back the Night Committee, said the group hasn't had a male survivor of abuse as a keynote speaker in its 15-year history. Rivers "will empower males who are also crime victims to come forward to get help." By speaking out on what he's gone through, she added, Rivers "can save other people." She expects the rally to draw 250 to 500 people. It is one of the longest-running rallies of its kind, Doro said, and Green Bay has one of the most proactive victim advocacy programs in the state. The Sexual Assault Center opened in 1978, Golden House family violence shelter opened in 1979 and the Victim Witness Program started in 1984. |
Rivers,
an actor in Los Angeles who recently appeared in the HBO show "Arli$$,"
believes God has called him to reach out to other survivors of domestic violence.