About 13,000 people watched the Pride parade in Northampton on May 3. “About 2,000 people were registered in the parade,” Clay Pearson told the Valley Post on May 5. Pearson runs the group that organized the event. The group has a web site at:
The Valley Post asked Pearson, “To what extent was this event a protest of Trump's policies?”
Pearson replied, “This year Hampshire Pride partnered with Northampton Resists to make a political rally the kick off event of our festival.”
On March 9, Northampton Resists organized an outdoor rally in Northampton attended by about 800 people to protest Trump's policies, an organizer told the Valley Post. The goal was to resist fascism. “If you’re tired of the barrage of news and want to do something, you’re not alone! We strive to mobilize, and more events are coming!” according to the organizers' web page:
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61572916231647#
The rest of Clay Pearson's reply to the Valley Post is at the end of this article.
The Venn diagram at
www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/climate
says rights for gender diverse people are essential to stopping climate change.
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In Greenfield on May 10 at 11 a.m., there will be a peace rally at the Town Common. Details are at:
www.traprock.org/franklin-county-for-peace
As of March 11, 2025, the USA had spent about $175 billion to help Ukraine fight Russia, according to:
www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine
This is at a time when millions of people die of starvation every year, and when the world's leading climate scientists say the federal government must spend more on putting solar panels on roofs; protecting farmland and forestland from development; and improving Amtrak, local buses, and sidewalks and bicycle paths.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was a chance for the USA and its allies in Europe to become friendly with Russia. But in 1999, NATO granted membership to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. In 2004, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia joined NATO. This was the cause of the “real rupture with the West,” according to the 2022 book “The Story of Russia” by Orlando Figes. He is a history professor at the third best university in the UK, according to US News and World Report.
This quote is from 71 percent of the way through the book, according to Amazon Kindle. The vast majority of the book is highly critical of Russia's leaders, since Russia's founding in 1547, including Putin.
More information is at:
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Brattleboro's new Amtrak station is under construction. Every six months the Valley Post does an article about Amtrak in the Valley. Ben Heckscher runs a Northampton-based group that has a web site at https://TrainsInTheValley.org. On May 5 he told the Valley Post that the biggest news about trains in the Pioneer Valley and Brattleboro in the past six months is, “Passenger rail ridership in western Massachusetts has grown 99 percent between SFY 2019 and SFY 2024 (SFY is state fiscal year); the selection of a site for the planned new station in (the Pioneer Valley town of) Palmer; planning work for Northern Tier (between Boston and Greenfield along Route 2) passenger rail service is progressing. Our focus is passenger rail in western Massachusetts. The actions of the Trump administration, up until now, haven't had any real effect on the existing rail service in western Mass. We are mindful that this could change. We're concerned that the Amtrak budget could be significantly cut in FY 2026, and/or the Federal Railroad Administration could hold back funding for planned infrastructure improvements for West-East rail (between Boston and Springfield along Interstate 90) and improvements on the Hartford line corridor in Connecticut.” The Hartford line is used by Amtrak to get from Brattleboro and the Pioneer Valley to New York City.
Meanwhile in California a bullet train is under construction to run between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Details are at https://hsr.ca.gov. A bullet train could one day run between Boston and New York City via Springfield, Massachusetts. The Amtrak Acela between Boston and New York City runs on tracks that are at risk of flooding due to sea level rise. In China some trains go 286 miles per hour.
There are lots of daily roundtrip trains between Springfield, Massachusetts and New York City.
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About 13,000 people watched the Pride parade in Northampton on May 3, Clay Pearson told the Valley Post on May 5. Pearson runs the group that organized the event. Pearson told the Valley Post: “We are disgusted by the rolling back of trans rights by the government, but also celebrating the victories that the courts are having bringing them back. LGBTQ+ erasure can not be tolerated, and our voices will be heard as Hampshire Pride and Northampton Resists make history. Here is an approximate script of the opening remarks I gave at the kick off of Hampshire pride on Saturday: 'Good afternoon, beautiful people of Hampshire Pride and welcome to Northampton Resists 2025! What a joy, what a privilege, and what a powerful act of resistance it is to gather here today -- proud, unapologetic, and united in our demand for justice, dignity, and liberation for all of our queer brothers, sisters, and siblings alike. My Name is Clay Pearson, the founder and director of Hampshire Pride. I founded this organization in 2023 as a response to the absence of Pride in Northampton due to COVID-19.'”
Pearson said, “I was grief stricken when it did not reemerge in 2022, And in a short 9 weeks I and two other co-founders, Celina Almendarez and Kayla Abney, started this as a grassroots celebration that we had survived both biological and political pandemics. But now in this new political regime, we must once again rebalance our celebration with our positive political messaging. While Hampshire Pride may have started off as a party after the pandemic. It has grown as a movement. A living, breathing force for equality and change. And in this moment, as rights are being rolled back, as voices are being silenced, as hate is rising again—we rise louder. Today, we do not just celebrate who we are—we affirm who we are. We say loudly and clearly: We exist, we resist, and we will not be moved. We resist the erosion of our trans siblings’ rights. We resist the idea that any of us must be quiet to be accepted, or grateful just to be tolerated. We resist the racism, misogyny, ableism, and classism that try to divide us.”
Pearson said, “Let us stand together The L’s the G’s the B’s the T’s the Q’s and the Plusses all under one big tent. To every young person here looking for hope: you are hope. To every elder who has fought for decades: we thank you. To every ally standing beside us: stand loud and stand proud. I am honored to welcome you to this historic first edition of a collaboration of Northampton Resists and Hampshire Pride. Where our Pride and our protest walk hand in hand. So raise your voices, lift your flags, and let the world know: Hampshire Pride resists. Northampton resists. Let’s make history — together."
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