Court Cline interviewed by Caroline Dubinsky March 22, 2020 via Zoom Meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Narrator
Court Cline was born January 28, 1963 in Springfield, Missouri, but moved to Las Vegas before he was two years old so that the family could be closer to his grandparents. He considers Las Vegas to be his hometown. Court considers his family to have been solidly middle class, and both of his parents worked for the US Postal Service in Las Vegas. He has a brother and sister, and they grew up in a small subdivision less than two miles from the Las Vegas Strip that was designed around every family having horses. The thirty houses comprised mostly white with a few Mexican American families, and each had a private two-stall barn for the horses. Court moved to Amherst, Massachusetts in 1982, then to Northampton in 1984 before living in Boston from 1989 to 1991. He then moved back to Western Massachusetts, and lived on Butterworth Far, a gay commune in Royalston, Massachusetts from 1994 to 1996. The commune was started in 1973 by Allen Young, Bob Gravley, Steve McCarty, Carl Miller, and Arthur Platt as an intentional, \u201cback to the land\u201d community founded on 1960s counterculture commune ideals. Since then, Court has lived in Northampton, Easthampton, and Williamsburg, returning to Northampton in 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Court has been in multiple long-term relationships, including one now-ended marriage to a man for nearly nine years. He has two children, aged nineteen and twenty, with two different lesbian couples in Northampton and maintains a significant relationship with them and their mothers and
their families. He has been with his current partner for almost ten years, and they share a rescue dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Court co-owned and operated the collectively run, alternative bookstore, Food for Thought Books in Amherst from 1983 to 1989 and again from 1991 to 1997. He volunteered with the Northampton Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee in the early to mid-1980s, and became with anti-war movements as an undergraduate at UMass, continuing this work for the next decade. While living in Boston, he worked for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and also volunteered with AIDS Action and was involved with ACT UP and Queer Nation there. After spending a year traveling the world, Court worked as a Case Manager-Volunteer Coordinator for AIDS CARE\/Hampshire County from 1998 to 2010. He was a Union Organizer-Servicing Representative for the UAW Local 2322 from 2010 to 2016 and currently serves as the LGBTQ Liaison in the Northampton Mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abstract:
In this interview, Court Cline reflects on his life from his childhood in Las Vegas to his time as a student and activist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and in the greater Northampton
area community. He discusses his AIDS activism as well as his involvement with the NoHo Pride celebration from its earliest days when he was a peacekeeper to today and its role in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interviewer:
Caroline Joy Dubinsky, PhD is a member of the Simmons University Masters of Library and Information Science class of 2020. She is an art historian and librarian who works at Greenfield Community College as an adjunct instructor and a librarian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Please note: this interview mentions drug use and opioids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n