The Goddess of Knowledge and Maiden Charity

Kaymarion Raymond5 Comments

Former city poet laureate Leslea Newman posited, tongue in cheek, that Northampton was fated to be Lesbianville “in 1884, when Thomas M. Shepherd designed the official city seal, which depicts the Goddess of Knowledge holding hands with the Maiden Charity.”  I included this quote in one of the earliest blog posts  along with a fuzzy reproduction of the city seal and a request for a better reproduction.

 

Recently, out of the blue, this three year old wish was granted. Elizabeth Sharpe, Co-Executive Director of Historic Northampton, sent me a scan of the original artwork by Shepherd from their holdings. Thank you Betty. Historic Northampton is also online if you are out of town and wish a browsing visit, including old maps and other sources. https://www.historicnorthampton.org/    and is also on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/HistoricNorthampton/

 

NORTHAMPTON-TOWN-SEAL-copy (1)
Northampton City Seal by Thomas M. Shepherd Courtesy of Historic Northampton

 

SOURCES:

__Leslea Newman. “Greetings from Lesbianville U.S.A.: grrrls, goddesses, and Gloria Steinem! Northampton, Mass., is the Sapphic center of America, tucked away among New England academia,” The Advocate (The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine), 1 March 2005, /Greetings+from+Lesbianville+U.S.A.%3A+grrrls,+goddesses,+and+Gloria…-a0129710080.

__ Historic Northampton. https://www.historicnorthampton.org/    Check out the History Sources Online feature and also on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HistoricNorthampton/

The Vast and Beautiful World of Indigenous Europe

Kaymarion RaymondLeave a comment

Our Pre-History needs to be reclaimed as part of decolonization. Our sacred roots may be only remembered by our long gone from body ancesters, but if we are brave we can call them.  Lyla June speaks to this in her article in Moon magazine__ long long ago another aspect of history to value. http://moonmagazine.org/lyla-june-reclaiming-our-indigenous-european-roots-2018-12-02/

And then hear her song:

David Dean's avatarWhite Awake

lyla-shi-pageLyla June / Sodizin

Lyla June, of Diné and European heritage, is an Indigenous water protector active in the struggle at Standing Rock. Her spoken word/musical recording, “All Nations Rise“, has received almost 2 million views since posted on Facebook last fall. In the post that accompanies the video on FB, Lyla writes: “I want to acknowledge that some of the first Indigenous Peopel’s that were forced into hiding were the medicine women of Old Europe. They estimate that 6-9 million women were raped, beaten, tortured, burned alive or drowned alive for being “witches.” Let us reclaim our Earth Selves no matter what “race” you are and do it soon! The earth may depend on it.”

In the following essay, which Lyla has graciously allowed us to repost on White Awake, she shares her personal story of connecting with loving ancestors from ancient, “Indigenous Europe”. May her story…

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donate button? (news 2017)

Kaymarion RaymondLeave a comment

For several years I have been trying to get a donate button up on this blog page to help defray the time and expense of this little side creation. I got the required Paypal business account. I printed out instructions three times following the observation that the WordPress-Paypal interface is difficult. And twice I have copied and pasted code. Alasses 😦  Now I read small print and find I need a paid WordPress platform.    For several years a feminist 501(C)3 has passed through a large donation to me, but it is not staffed adequately for handling lots of little ones.

fcpride by l's sister_edited-1

Franklin County Pride 2017 courtesy of Laura’s friend

 

I continue to slowly explore options for being more businesslike, but, while  the established regularity of the blog posts and steadily increasing readership are positive signs of growth, I find I am challenged to think  beyond the creation to its promotion. This is probably a basic conundrum for many artists.

I extroverted so much in November I have not posted here, but know several really deep posts are drafted and one will be in the air soon. Blessings to all of us to hold steady in our heart’s center as those cosmic storms sweep through.

UPDATE!!!! 2019. A computer genius friend  invented code to get the blog a donate button, bypassing the platform’s request for $25/month prepaid year in advance. So if you particularly like a post consider tossing a couple bucks my way. Every gift from you all really helps buy printer ink, books, computer maintenance, internet access, books, search engine subscriptions, paper, books, as well as my time earning the rent.

 

 

Gay Men in ‘70s ‘Hamp

Kaymarion Raymond1 Comment

Northampton High School student Jim Bridgman knew he was gay in the 1970s. He was a teenager with no one to turn to for support. Feeling frightened, isolated and confused, he joined other teens in snickering at the newly-out and obvious lesbians who patronized Forbes Library, where he worked part-time.

Adult gay men in Northampton didn’t fare much better, although they may have known where to cruise for casual sex and, if particularly blessed, had a few friends in town for private dinners or house parties. McCarthyism and would have still been deeply imprinted memories for older gay residents. Everyone was deeply closeted (like Northampton’s gay priest, Father Robert Arpin , for fear of exposure, loss of position, or worse.

The one exception to this in the 70s may have been the Gay Men’s Collective, briefly mentioned in this blog in the post about the Gay Movement in the Valley in 1971  . Imagine my surprise when a picture of the graceful old lady of a Victorian mansion where the Collective briefly lived showed up recently on my personal Facebook feed! Through a mutual friend, I discovered that Michael Prendergast had been visiting Northampton and took the photo below when he cruised by his former residence at 22 Butler Street.

 

22 Butler Place #2
22 Butler Place, Northampton in 2017, Photo by Michael J. Prendergast

 

The accomplished photographer shared not only this Victorian portrait, but also a small album of contemporary black and white photographs of friends and members of the Gay Men’s Collective when they lived there. Young men, long haired, with beards, mustaches or mutton chop sideburns, are shown draped around each other at the kitchen table or one of the livingrooms, with one woman or with a dog. Michael identified Sue, Jacque, John Mozolla, Michael Obligado, Gary, Barry, the dog Blue, as well as himself in these interiors. The flannel shirts, stoned expressions, as well as facial hair characterize them as part of the 70s hippie counterculture. That they were also part of the radical gay movement is emphasized by a fifth photo titled “Halloween 1971 at the House of the Radicals”. Nine of the young men pose in a variety of dress(es). Very tasteful and inventive if a bit strange for the time. The bearded dresswearer is now a more usual fashion statement.

Michael is unsure who took the pictures and no one has given permission to release them to the public, but a similar radical gay fashion may be seen in two historic homemovies recently posted to the internet of the very first 1970 Christopher Street Liberation March in New York City. http://www.back2stonewall.com/2017/06/1970-christopher-street-liberation-day-video.html  and  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HIpooMqAZk

Many conventionally dressed young men in long  or short sleeved shirts ( button downed collars?) can be seen in the march, interspersed by those in tight shorts  or teeshirts, some in drag, some barechested or swaggering in bell bottoms, and some small groups with long hair and mustaches. This mix of costumes reflected the newly emerging differences in identity (and politics) present from the beginning of the Gay Revolution in Northampton as well as New York.

In the Facebook commentary that followed Michael’s Butler Place portrait post, he estimates that the Collective was in residence around 1970-72. He describes living there with “borderline developmentally appropriate Woodstock era behaviors.”

He has kept touch with some of the house members. Michael Obligado and John Mazolla have died. He believes that both  died of AIDS. Gary commented that they burnt the furniture in the fireplace for warmth when there was no money for the bills;  the drag closet was stuffed with clothes from the Valley Women’s Center Free Store;  and he’s not saying what happened in the attic.

Other than the Collective’s brief radical burst out of the closet, though, gay men living in Northampton usually had to go out of town to connect with each other during this decade. In the seventies, Amherst became the prime locale for a growing number of new alternatives to the Springfield bar scene. Townspeople were always welcome to the dances and events organized by the UMass Student Homophile League/Gay Liberation Front and their later incarnations. Starting in late 1974, information and news could be found by listening to WMUA’s “Gay Break” radio show broadcast from UMass. The first of its kind on the East Coast, Gay Break was hosted by Demian and Brian Egan through early 1977.

The first non-bar, off-campus gay group also formed in Amherst. About thirty people, including several women, met weekly as the Pioneer Valley Gay Union in the hair salon at the Lord Jeffery Inn during 1974-75. It was primarily a consciousness raising/discussion group with many Northampton members.

The UMass Gay Liberation Front, which members of the Gay Men’s Collective helped start, began the tradition of taking over local bars one night a week to establish marginally gay-tolerant space. The Rathskeller, a basement bar in the Drake (Hotel?actually a rooming house) on Amity Street in Amherst, was the first place established by sheer persistence and word of mouth.

Northampton resident Steve Trudel thought the dark, underground Rathskeller wasn’t a fun place to dance, so in 1972 or 73, he got others to go with him to Rachid’s, a disco bar in the new Mountain Farm Mall in Hadley. After several weeks of Wednesday night same-sex couples dancing, the manager tried to make them leave. Northampton’s Jeff Jerome was among the men who lined up to insist they get their cover charge refunded when police evicted them. The gay crowd kept returning, however. Wednesday nights at Rachid’s came to be considered profitable by the owner. They continued until the bar closed in the late seventies or early eighties.

 

rachid ad_edited-1
Ad from GCN 1976 New England Gay Guide

 

After Rachid’s closing, the Pearl Street Nightclub in Northampton established an “alternative” dance night popular with gay men. By then, Northampton’s gay men were also beginning to organize themselves.

SOURCES

__Bridgman, Jim. “Yes, I Am” in One Teacher in Ten. Beacon Press. Boston. 1994. And in private comments to me.

__Prendergast, Michael J. Facebook comment exchange, along with many respondents. May 21-25, 2017.

__Gauthier, Bambi. Notes for me on 70s activity.

__Trudel, Stephen. Email correspondence with me. September-November 2004.

__http://www.back2stonewall.com/2017/06/1970-christopher-street-liberation-day-video.html

__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HIpooMqAZk

 

Bars and the Violent Backlash

Kaymarion Raymond4 Comments

Being a small town may have spared Northampton the particularly virulent backlash that began to be experienced in the 1970s by feminist, lesbian and gay organizations in large cities. Bars, conferences, centers, publications and presses across the country had begun to be subjected to sniping, break-ins, vandalizing and arson.  The nearest incident was the Springfield firebombing of the Arch bar in 1973, which may have been Mafia related, but the Boston offices of Gay Community News were burglarized in the 70s before being destroyed by arson in 1982. Northampton, however, wasn’t totally spared a violent reaction to the new lesbian visibility.

One response of the growing number of lesbians that began to come out in 1975 was to find local bar space rather than travel to Springfield or Chicopee. Jeanie, owner of the Gala Cafe on Bridge Street, was amenable to hosting women in the bar’s backroom once a week and discouraging men from intruding there. The bar with blinking neon lights was a small, squat pink stucco building between the railroad overpass and Jack August’s restaurant. The backroom, which may have once been for family dining, held a jukebox and booths squeezed round a dance floor.

 

jean gala
“Jean at the Gala.” 24”x36” etching by Barbara Johnson. Used by permission of the artist.

 

When the first lesbian disc jockeys began to spin records there, the place soon became packed, attracting many more gay women than just those who were politically active in town. This custom was to continue through 1979. Because the Gala was so small, in the summer of 1975, the larger backroom of Packards on Masonic Street was rented for “Wednesday Nights at Zelda’s.”

 

gala cafe_edited-1
“Remember When?” Handtinted photo by Sandra Leigh Russell. Used by permission of the photographer.

 

Over the summer of 1975, there was greatly increased visibility of lesbians on Northampton streets several nights a week. Women leaving these neighborhood bars began to be taunted by men. Rumor had it that several weeks of harassment culminated in a lesbian being attacked outside the Gala by several men armed with a shovel and a machete. The rape of a lesbian who was walking home from the bar was also rumored. (I am still seeking substantiation. Without it, I can’t verify these incidents.)

Responding to the increasing frequency of such incidents, Lesbians formed a Community Education and Self-defense Group in August of 1975 that organized small groups of women which became known as the Dyke Patrol. They established a physical presence outside the two bars, Lesbian Gardens and the occasional Wimmin’s dance, and also escorted women to their parked cars. This seems to have worked as an immediate deterrent, for the Patrol was disbanded six months later. It was, however the beginning of a violent male pushback on the streets of Northampton that would escalate over the next decade as Lesbians, and then Gay men, insisted on a new visibility in the City.

The Gala Café was razed in 1983 along with Jack August’s, the restaurant next door, to make way for a sports bar.

 

SOURCES:

  __[Raymond], Kaymarion and Letalien, Jacqueline, editors. the Valley Women’s Movement: A Herstorical Chronology 1968-1978. Ceres Inc. Northampton. 1978. Valley Women's History Collaborative

__Old South St. Study Group. “Analysis of a Lesbian Community-Part One.” Lesbian Connection. Jul 1977. P7-8.

__Potter, Clare. The lesbian periodicals index. Naiad Press. Tallahassee FL. 1986.               Listed, between 1973-1979: Sniper shot at women convening in Seattle; Gay Community News (Boston) and Majority Report (NY) offices burglarized; A NYC women’s center vandalized; St. Louis Women’s Center and Iowa Clinic firebombed; Fires also set at the Los Angeles MCC Church, Seattle Gay Community Center and a St. Louis bar.

__Mitchell, Phoebe. “Last Call for a Bar Ahead of Its Time.” Daily Hampshire Gazette. July 07, 2004. Northampton MA.