Keep sharing stories, urge Milano and #metoo founder

ACTRESS Alyssa Milano, after seeing 1.5 million #metoo tweets this week, called for the nation’s women to keep their voices loud and strong about sexual harassment.

“It is a cultural issue that I think we have to face,” she said Thursday in a “Good Morning America” appearance.

“And women posting ‘me too,’ I think, gave them the courage to not have to tell their story or not have to face their predator, but just to stand in solidarity.”

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of tweets with the #metoo hashtag, a total of 13.5 million posts, comments and reactions appeared across social media.

“This was really about showing this happens everywhere,” Milano declared. “That it’s not just Hollywood. That it’s not just actresses. It’s women on Wall Street. It’s women in hospitals . ... It’s women walking down the street.”

While Milano has gotten much of the credit for putting the “me too” confession on the fingertips of women all over the world, the sentiment originated more than a decade ago in the heart and soul of a woman born in the Bronx.

Tarana Burke was working as a youth camp counselor in Alabama when a 13-year-old girl opened up to her about the sexual abuse she suffered from her stepfather.

Burke, listened for five minutes, then shut the girl down because her story dredged up too many of her own sexual abuse memories.

“I tried to listen and engage,” said Burke, who now lives in Harlem. “And when she walked away, I kept thinking, ‘Why couldn’t I have just said me too?’”

Burke was inspired to launch the campaign with “Me Too” T-shirts and a MySpace page. But Burke, who is now the senior director of programs at Girls for Gender Equity, said the recent #metoo phenomenon caught her off guard.

“On Sunday I was in a panic,” Burke told the Daily News. “Folks were tagging me saying, ‘Hey, I see all these things about ‘me too’ but I don't see your name attached.’”

Burke said the movement about more than who gets credit.

“It shows the sheer magnitude of the problem,” Burke said. “But then once we see the numbers and the people, there has to be another step. There are new survivors every hour. is

“What's important for me is that the conversation moves from ‘Look at the numbers,’ to ‘Now that we've seen the numbers, how do we help these people? What does healing look like?’”

Burke said she and Milano are talking every day.

Milano said she planned to coordinate going forward with Burke.

“What the ‘me too’ campaign really does and what Tarana Burke has really enabled us all to do is put the focus back on the victims,” Milano said. “To give us a voice, to give us strength, to give us power.”

The one-time child actor turned Hollywood star said her sexual harassers were too numerous to count — in bars hanging out with her friends, or riding in a cab.

Milano said she hoped the outrage stirred in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal would continue until the world wakes up to what’s going on.

“I think that the numbers are a testament as to how powerful women can be when we do stand together, and we are one,” she said.

“I really want this to be about every woman’s voice. This is your movement, women. This is your time.”