Haywood’s inaugural Pride festival kicks off
A host of Pride events are scheduled for this coming weekend. File photo
Raymond Valentine has seen a lot of things in his long life, but after 80 years he doesn’t have to wait much longer to see a Pride festival in the rugged Appalachian county where he’s lived nearly his entire life.
“I never thought I’d see it in my own home town,” Raymond said.
Born in Maggie Valley, Raymond and his brothers were a rough-and-tumble crew who spent their days fishing, hunting and tooling around the woods when they weren’t helping their mother take care of the farm. Growing up in Western North Carolina during the 1950s, they were pretty typical boys, but Raymond’s mother always knew he was somehow different.
After graduating from Western Carolina University, Raymond earned his master’s degree at UNC-Chapel Hill and then spent some time overseas, teaching English at military bases in Germany in the early 1970s. He returned to Haywood County and began a decades-long career that earned him at least one Teacher of the Year award.
“He was revered as an educator,” said Raymond’s niece, Lori Valentine, who lived with him for several years in the late 1980s. “He would even get letters from time to time from ex-students, thanking him for his creative ways of teaching and just how he captivated his children. He was constantly looking for ways to intrigue them and to inspire them to learn.”
All the while, Raymond had to shield his true self from a society that still considered homosexuality a mental illness.
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“It was grueling for him,” Lori said. “He had to really keep his lifestyle under wraps. He couldn’t be true to himself.”
At the same time, Lori described Raymond as “fearless.”
Once, Lori recalls, while weeding the elaborate gardens of dinner-plate dahlias outside her uncle’s home, a car full of teenage boys drove by, slowing just enough to spew expletives at them. Raymond and his partner, a Marine, didn’t cower; they hopped in their car and tried to chase the boys down.
“It hurt him, you know? It hurt them both,” she said. “We’re talking about physically and mentally strong people that had to pretend they were people they weren’t for many years. For most of their lives.”
By the early 1960s, the 40-year-old LGBTQ+ rights movement in the United States finally began to score some important victories that affirmed basic rights, like free speech, freedom of association, even the freedom to be served drinks at a bar.
The movement’s watershed moment, however, was a 1969 riot at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Police had raided the popular gay bar around 1 a.m., leading to three days of protests and conflict with police.
The 1970s saw similar milestones — the first Pride parade, the first openly gay elected official, the first time the American Psychiatric Association did not list homosexuality as a mental illness — as well as a generally more relaxed attitude towards LGBTQ+ community than had prevailed at any time prior.
But then came the 1980s and a new wave of backlash against the LGBTQ+ community due to ignorance and misconceptions surrounding an infectious disease no one had ever heard of before.
“The bumper stickers on cars in Haywood County, I remember seeing them more than once, said ‘AIDS cures gays,’” Lori said. “His friends were dropping like flies.”
Raymond’s partner was one of them.
At the time, President Ronald Reagan was criticized for not doing more to address the AIDS epidemic — a silent symbol of society’s continuing reluctance to address challenges in the LGBTQ+ community.
His successor, former Vice President George H. W. Bush, signed the Ryan White CARE act in 1990, creating the largest federally funded program for people living with HIV or AIDS, but a few years later, the Department of Defense’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy still seemed like only a partial victory for LGBTQ+ advocates.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton’s Defense of Marriage Act was also seen as a tremendous letdown for marriage equality; basically, it said that no state could be required to recognize a marriage between same-sex spouses. When that law was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015, it marked perhaps the greatest civil rights victory ever for the LGBTQ+ community and paved the way for the marriage equality enjoyed by Americans today.
Raymond has lived through all of those consequential moments, but for him, maybe the biggest will come when the inaugural Haywood Pride on Main festival kicks off on Friday, June 28 — the 55th anniversary of the Stonewall riot.
“I’m happy with the progress,” Raymond said, “but it was decades too late.”
The significance of that sentiment wasn’t lost on event organizer Tera McIntosh.
“Many folks here in the South and in Appalachia have hidden their identities, because of fear, because of not knowing what the outcome would be, because of their families, because of their jobs,” McIntosh said. “I think just being the first Pride it creates a space for us to come together, and it also shows the community what businesses, individuals, organizations and groups are inclusive. That lets them make informed decisions on where they want to spend their money, their dollars, their time.”
Judging by the community response to the event, there’s been plenty of enthusiasm; Haywood Pride on Main is sponsored by individual donors along with more than 30 local and regional businesses. One of them has a story strikingly similar to Raymond’s.
“One of our largest donors asked to remain anonymous,” said McIntosh. “They stated that they never thought they would see a Pride festival in Haywood County, and they wanted to give back to the community even though they don’t live here anymore because they were so moved by it happening this year.”
The festival starts with bar events on Friday night. On Saturday morning, it begins with speeches on the Historic Haywood County Courthouse lawn, including by not one but two local trailblazers.
Anthony Sutton is currently serving his second term as Waynesville’s first openly gay member of Town Council. Amy Russell became Clyde’s first and Haywood County’s second openly gay elected official last November. Russell said she was honored to be part of Haywood County’s first Pride.
“We are hoping that our county, as well as people from surrounding counties, will come out and support the many attendees and vendors in a positive and respectful manner,” she said.
Sponsors and volunteers are still being accepted for the festival. For more information, visit haywoodncprideonmain.org.
Want to go?
Haywood County’s first LGBTQ+ Pride festival will take place in Waynesville and other locations on the weekend of June 28. For more information, visit haywoodncprideonmain.org .
Friday, June 28
• 8 p.m.
Live music featuring Savannah Paige
The Water’n Hole Bar and Grill, 796 N, Main St., Waynesville
• 9 p.m.
Pride dance party
The Water’n Hole Bar and Grill, 796 N. Main St., Waynesville
Saturday, June 29
• 10 a.m.
Speeches by community leaders
Historic Haywood County Courthouse, 285 N. Main St., Waynesville
• 10:30 a.m.
Parade kickoff
• 11 a.m.
Festival opens on Commerce Street in Frog Level
• 11 a.m.
Rhythm and Flow Community Drum Circle with Waynesville Bellydance
• Noon
• Urban Combat Wrestling
Noon
Live Canvas Art with Bobbi Silverwood
• 12:30 p.m.
Kim Smith Music
• 2 p.m.
Arnold Hill Music
• 4 p.m.
Festival closes
• 7 p.m.
Glam & Glitz: A Drag Affair
The Lineside, 58 Commerce St., Waynesville
• 10 p.m.
Post-show drinks at Amici’s Italian Restaurant
454 Hazelwood Ave., Waynesville
Sunday, June 30
• Noon
BYOGB (Bring Your Own Garlic Bread)
Misfit Mountain Animal Rescue, 922 Incinerator Road Clyde
