Oral History with Sherry Wood, February 26, 2019 (Ms2019-001)

Interviewee: Sherry Wood

Interviewer: Carol Robidoux

Date of Interview: February 26, 2019

R: Okay, so we're rolling. Just for the purposes of identification, tell us a little bit about yourself: your full name, the date and place of your birth, where you grew up. And during which years did you attend Virginia Tech?

W: My name is Sherry Wood, and I attended Virginia Tech from 1976 to 1980. I grew up in Virginia, in a little town in Louisa County. I started working for my hometown paper there when I was a sophomore in high school. I wrote news columns for them. So, when I walked into the door at the Collegiate Times in Squires Hall as a freshman--that would've been in January of [19]77--I already had some news experience under my belt, and was assigned to do general assignment reporting.

R: Was your decision to attend Virginia Tech deliberate? Like, did you have other choices or was that kind of where you knew you wanted to go?

W: I actually was planning to attend William and Mary, but my high school boyfriend, who I adored, had decided to go to Virginia Tech. So at the last possible moment, I changed--I applied, I think, on the last day, and that's how I ended up going to Tech. That was not my original plan.

R: So, were you a member of the Gay Student Alliance at Virginia Tech?

W: My sophomore year, I was in a dormitory, and I was randomly assigned a roommate and became fast friends with her. Her name is Olga Acosta, and she was a member of the Gay Student Alliance, and through her I never became an official member of the GSA, but I became an unofficial member of the GSA, met almost everyone who was a part of it, and became much more aware of the whole topic of 2:00gay rights and student activism and what gay students on campus at Virginia Tech at this time were up against.

R: So you were involved in the newspaper from the very beginning of your career at Virginia Tech?

W: Not the first couple months, because I was trying to get my footing. But yes, as soon as I got there, I jumped in feet first. I was mentored by the woman who would be my predecessor as editor-in-chief. Her name is Judy Webber. We're still friends. She lives in Rhode Island. She kind of took me under her wing. She was a little bit older as a student, seven or eight years older, non-traditional student. I learned a lot from her, also her kind of ironic, sarcastic, and cynical viewpoint infiltrated me at an early age. So, by the time September of [19]78 rolled around, I was the editor-in-chief and a junior at that time, twenty years old.

R: So, for anybody who's watching this who wasn't alive during the [19]70s, 3:00especially students today who might be interested in this piece of history, can you--in a general way, set the scene of what the late [19]70s were about for you? In terms of a young woman, you were a teenager or a young adult, what were the times like--to be alive, to be a college student--what were the big issues that you recall, as you recall them?

W: Well, it was very exciting to go to Virginia Tech because I came from a very small place, and there were at least fifteen thousand undergraduates on campus at the time. It was a big university. No one knew me, which was so exciting because I was so tired of everybody knowing everything about me. In 1976, when I graduated from high school, that was the first year female students were accepted at Harvard and Dartmouth. I was very much aware of that because part of me kind of longed to go to those schools, but I was too afraid to apply. But it was really a big turning point, and women's rights were very much in the front 4:00part of my brain. That more so than gay rights, because I really didn't know gay people in high school. Or at least, if I did I didn't know I knew them. So, the late [19]70s were a liberal time socially. I mean, there was a lot of partying. Everybody sort of makes fun of the outfits--Saturday Night Fever--but it was a great time to be on campus. And yes, as soon as I got there, I wanted to become involved in the college paper and start reporting on the events at that time.

R: So, your connection to Denim Day, then, comes out of--in great part because you were editor-in-chief of the newspaper by this time, so when did that happen? Was it only your senior year, or when did you become editor-in-chief? And talk a little bit about how that then gave you a platform or gave the school community a platform to promote Denim Day and to write about it. How do you connect to 5:00Denim Day as the editor?

W: Well, yes, of course because we were covering events related to the Gay Student Alliance, I was connected in that fashion to Denim Day and GSA topics in general. But it's also true that--I was a junior that year I was editor--in November of [19]78 Harvey Milk in San Francisco was assassinated, along with the mayor. In fact, I just read that Dianne Feinstein was the one who discovered his body, the California senator, and made the announcement to sort of calm everybody down at the time. I remember it came across--we had an old Associated Press machine that was in between the newspaper office and WUVT, the radio station. [Note: In a post-interview correction, Wood indicated that they machine was actually located inside the WUVT office.] And it would ding if there was a big story. It would actually ring a little bell, and the paper would churn out, kind of type out. That story came over, and even though I'd never really heard 6:00of Harvey Milk, the fact that he was shot and he was gay and he was such an icon in the gay community, that did really--I remember it very distinctly. I remember that day in November. So it was just two months later--or a little less, even--that the GSA proposed Denim Day as an event. So, we covered it very routinely, just almost like an announcement that it was happening. So, Denim Day, just to briefly explain--I'm sure anybody watching this knows probably--was very straightforward, I thought. It was, if you support gay rights on this day, wear denim. That was a visual message that you were in support of gay rights. At the time, I thought, "no big deal." We put the thing in the paper, I forgot about it. Then as soon as it appeared, we literally started getting--I would say 7:00we got at least a hundred and fifty letters. Which, college students wrote letters to the editor then. They would put pen to paper. But for something, we might get ten letters or twenty, but to get a hundred and fifty--and some of them were really hysterical or really just over the top, against gay rights. Furious, feeling like straight people's lives and rights were being violated and that this was so unfair. There was outrage, there was real outrage. Obviously. Probably half the letters were in support of Denim Day, but the writers of the letters that were against it, used so much more hyperbole and were just really--just so much animosity, it was pretty amazing. I was taken aback. I did not expect that level of animosity.

R: Now, you had the top editorial, as I saw, on the page that day. And I think it's a good opportunity to explain, to spell out a little bit why Denim Day was such an assault on student sensibility in that time frame. I think you made that point in your editorial about why this struck such a chord. But again, for those who may not make that connection or even understand the importance of denim to a college student in that time, can you speak a little bit more about, "Why denim?" Like as you said in your editorial, "Why not a red scarf?" Why that was sort of a strategic idea.

W: Well, I have to say that even though I was friends with many people in the GSA, I wasn't in on the planning stages of the event. I think denim was a choice, a logical choice because Virginia Tech was a casual campus. There was a 9:00lot of plaid, flannel. It was cold there in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the winter, so people dressed casually and practically. That, at that time, meant Levi's or denim, and denim in general in the late [19]70s--denim hats, denim vests, denim skirts were huge. I think I had two denim skirts. People had denim boots. It was the acknowledged uniform of the Virginia Tech students. So, for GSA to choose that as a way of sort of nudging people, like, "Oh, this thing you wear every day, this is now going to symbolize something." And, "Are you comfortable with that? How do you feel about that?" Again, even though we had gotten this flood of letters in response to the announcement of Denim Day, when I wrote the editorial, I still had this sort of naïve thing that--it was so clear to me. "Denim? Okay. You're mad because one day, you can't wear denim 10:00without making a political statement, a political statement you might not agree with. Really? You feel outraged and violated and your rights are being trampled on because one day you can't wear denim?" So that was the gist. I thought it was very simple. One day, you can't wear denim. You're freaking out. What about people who are gay? Every day for them, in every way, their rights are trampled on, their choices are criticized. They're dying, they're being ostracized, they're losing jobs. So you're upset because you can't wear denim. My favorite line in the editorial, even now to this day, is where I said, "Think, people! Think!" I love that. And to me, it was just--it's short, it might be two hundred words. To me, it was just straightforward. Again, I was naïve. We got a whole 'nother lot of letters after this editorial appeared--I see it's January 16, 1979--that were, again, just as vituperative. So many people furious. Again, 11:00probably half were in favor of the event. But still, when I wrote this, I still didn't fully grasp what it meant to the Virginia Tech community, this event, Denim Day.

R: Outside of the letters that poured in, can you think of or recall, was there any outward protests on the campus, or did people wear velvet or gingham or--[Laughter] did people actually dress differently to loudly state that they were not in alliance with the--

W: There were a handful of people that did wear . . . some outfits. I don't really remember protests, per se, but what I did notice when I went to class that day was that there was a noticeable absence of denim. In fact, I would say that maybe twenty or thirty percent of people wore denim instead of ninety 12:00percent. That was a pretty big statement in and of itself.

[Break in interview]

R: Speaking of fashion, do you happen to remember what you wore on Denim Day?

W: I do. I wore jeans, 'cause it was January so it was cold, and I had a denim vest. So I had two pieces of denim on. My first class that day was a philosophy class, Existentialism and Phenomenology. I walked into the class, sat in my usual seat, took off my coat, and a guy who had been sitting across from me through most of the other classes came in. He takes off his coat, sits down next to me, takes one look. And he had been sort of smiling at me before he took a closer look. Then his whole face transformed into this . . . really, like, contemptuous, sort of angry, disgusted look. He actually sort of snorted, he 13:00sort of made a "hmph" sound, got up, picked up his books and jacket, and like, walked off, and like, moved to the back of the class. He wouldn't even sit next to me.

R: So it did have an impact.

W: It did have an impact. I was really, again--maybe it has to do with being twenty and like, sort of a positive, upbeat person. It was a good lesson for me, though. It was like I had this very minor encounter in my everyday life with someone who ostracized me in a way. A very minor way, obviously, because of a statement I was making about my political views. That was an eye-opener for me. I didn't think anybody would pay that much attention, really.

R: So in hindsight, would you call the event itself a success?

W: It was a success because so many people paid attention to it. I think more people than the GSA participated, and certainly evidenced by the flood of letters to the newspaper. The other thing that came out of that for me, as far 14:00as the Virginia Tech community, was after that editorial appeared, I was contacted directly by a number of people who were in the administration or teachers who were closeted gay people who wanted to have one-on-one meetings and just talk. So I had a series of really interesting--again, everything was off the record. This was a personal meeting. This was not about something I was writing for the paper. One of the people I met with for lunch was a professor, he was in his late thirties. He told me he lived every day in fear that he would be outed and would lose his job. He was quite convinced he would have no support in the Virginia Tech community to keep his job if it were revealed that he were gay. Another person worked in administrative support in Burruss Hall, the main--not in the president's office but that whole administrative complex there. 15:00We met at a bar for a drink. One thing I noticed, he had very nicely manicured fingernails and his hair was kind of long. As we were talking, he started telling me these stories about how--at that time, it was called cross-dressing. Obviously not the correct term now, but that was what it was called in 1979. And how he had these encounters. He would go down to Roanoke, which was the closest gay bar, dressed as a woman, and how he'd had some really scary experiences, because these kind of redneck-y guys would hang out, wait for people to come out late at night from the bar, because everybody knew it was a gay bar, and harass people. In one case, he said, he only didn't get assaulted because he could outrun these guys in high heels. He had high heels on. That's sort of funny in a way, but it also speaks to the times. People were prepared to beat you up when you came out of the gay bar in Roanoke, which was the only gay bar that I knew 16:00of when I was a Virginia Tech student.

[Break in interview]

R: Okay, so fast-forward to 2019. Talk a little bit about where you are now in your life forty years later, and anything about your life now that relates to this experience from forty years ago.

W: Well, probably personally the biggest event related to me about gay rights was having my own son come out when he was sixteen years old, and now that's been eighteen years. He's thirty-four now. Even though I thought I was a relatively open-minded, sensitive, sensitized mom on the issue of gay rights, it still was a shock to me. He later told me that he was disappointed in my response. I wasn't negative but I was just quiet. I didn't really say that much. My primary concern, and you hear this from a lot of parents of gay children, is, 17:00I mean, I was worried about his health, I was worried about his safety. I wanted him to have a normal, safe life. The biggest revelation for me is, I suddenly understood--he was sixteen and at the time, I had an eleven year-old daughter--that's when it really came into my consciousness that there really is no such thing, that you can't control your children's lives and you have to open yourself up to what their experience is. So, that was a personally politicizing moment. I did become more involved locally in the whole issue of gay rights, and in fact at the moment I'm involved with a local historical society I've been involved with forever, but we're doing a gay rights-oriented exhibit that opens May of 2019 related to this region I live in in Seacoast, New Hampshire. So that 18:00particular gay experience, but it also coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City. That'll be fifty years in June. And we're doing a whole bunch of stuff during Pride Month, which is in June, all sorts of events related to that. So, it did radicalize me. I mean, I'm not marching around with signs or anything, but I quietly and consistently try to find ways to support the whole issue. I know gay rights, LGBTQ and more, I understand that, but you have to make allowances for my age. So, gay is kind of the operative word I grew up with. But, it is part of my daily consciousness. I'm really happy that the university has embraced this fortieth anniversary and has a whole infrastructure built so that this awareness can continue to be 19:00raised on campus.

R: When you were contacted about this project, do you remember your reaction? Like, were you surprised at all that something that happened forty years ago that you were just the editor of a newspaper doing your job, and now they wanted to talk to you about that experience? Was there any part of that that surprised you, and how did you process that and how are you thinking about it now that you've had time to really reconsider historically what that might have meant to Virginia Tech and to the world?

W: I was surprised that what really seemed to me at the time to be a pretty kind of a small-scale event--although it did evoke a big response at the time--was getting this kind of recognition. But then, so, I was first surprised but then real happiness, because I thought, "Wow, the university has come to the point where it understands the importance of this event and it is willing to set aside 20:00time and staff time and resources to acknowledge it and make it part of the curriculum or make it part of a whole set of community events. So that was very meaningful to me. What a change in forty years from it being sort of this student-led, small-scale event to being now part of, almost like, the administration's worldview about how this is an important anniversary, an important issue, and it needs to be integrated into daily university life.

R: Do you feel like Denim Day could happen in 2019? Is that the kind of thing--

W: I mean, I think it would be kind of corny now. I mean, with social media and people expressing themselves in so many different ways--it was a simpler time, so gestures were more basic, like, "Wear denim." "Carry a sign." People still 21:00make symbolic gestures, but I do think that maybe what's happening now with the fortieth anniversary and this acknowledgment of that anniversary and its importance, this is more the 2019 version of Denim Day.

R: Well, thank you for your time. I think that wraps up all the questions here, and if there's anything else you wanted to add, maybe just in general, what has changed in forty years when you reflect on society and where we are as a culture today.

W: Well, I certainly--we've seen great advances. I'm a positive person. I tend to look on the bright side, and I'm hopeful about the direction and the speed of the direction, the things that have happened and the speed at which they've happened. But again, it does seem like we have to continue fighting the same 22:00battles. That is discouraging. As a journalist of forty years, it seems like we've put something to bed, we've figured it out, and then it flares up again. There's a lot of ignorance and there's a lot of strife, and hatred and violence, and then we have to figure it out all over again. So, the battle isn't done. The battle is not over. I am happy to participate in this event because I feel like even if it's on a small scale, I'm helping do my part to assure a better life for people who identify with the LGBTQ and more community.

R: Thank you, Sherry.

W: Thank you, Carol.

[End of interview]

[Laughter]

Ms2019-001; Wood; Page 2

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