{"id":879,"date":"2026-02-27T13:28:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T18:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/?p=879"},"modified":"2026-02-27T13:28:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T18:28:46","slug":"melinda-shaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/melinda-shaw\/","title":{"rendered":"Melinda Shaw"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Melinda Shaw interviewed by Shannon Compton, PhD on March 20, 2020<br>on the Zoom platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Narrator:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Melinda Shaw was born in Providence, RI on May 27th, 1960. She grew up with her father, mother and 3 sisters. At some point early in her childhood the family moved to Norton, MA and they lived in the same house for the rest of her childhood. Her family was very close, enough so that she moved back to the area as an adult so that she could be near them. Her father was diagnosed with MS when she was young and this has a significant effect on her growing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Melinda started college in New Haven, CT then transferred to Ithaca College where she earned a B.S in Physical Education\/Sociology. She has had several careers since college, including owning her own businesses. She has had 2 significant relationships. The first was with a woman, which lasted for 13 years and they had 2 children. She currently lives with her wife, 3 children, and their dog, Griffin. Her 2 oldest children live in NYC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She started going to Pride events in 1979 and NoHo Pride in 1990 or 1991. She took over Northampton Pride in 1999 when the current leaders left with 5 weeks until Pride was to have occurred. She then became the Director and ran Pride for 11 years. She currently works as the Church Administrator for First Churches of Northampton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abstract:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Melinda shares her experiences growing up in a small New England town, how she discovered her sexuality, became an activist, a mother, and a leader in the LGBTQ community. She also describes her pivotal role in the evolution of the Northampton Pride rally into the celebration of community now called NoHo Pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interviewer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shannon Compton, PhD is a member of Simmons University class of 2020. She is earning a Master\u2019s in Library and Information Science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Northampton Pride and Liberation: Melinda Shaw Interview\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u07qTB1y-lA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-pdfjsblock-pdfjs-embed pdfjs-wrapper\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melinda Shaw interviewed by Shannon Compton, PhD on March 20, 2020on the Zoom platform. Narrator: Melinda Shaw was born in Providence, RI on May 27th, 1960. She grew up with her father, mother and 3 sisters. At some point early in her childhood the family moved to Norton, MA and they lived in the same [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"noho-pride","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[29,43,27,44,18,42],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-northampton-pride","tag-families","tag-individuality","tag-interpersonal-relations","tag-melinda-shaw","tag-political-parades-rallies","tag-shannon-compton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions\/881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/queernorthampton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}