Tamara Sheffield oral history interview, 2021 February 25th
Description
Tamara Sheffield discusses her role as one of the founding members of the Salisbury Pride board and her experiences organizing Pride events in Salisbury, North Carolina. Topics discussed include Ms. Sheffield's initial corporate involvement with Pride as a result of her job at Frito-Lay and how this experience inspired her to get into the field of organization; the obstacles in planning Pride in a small town and the bravery it took to face the unknowns that came with organizing Pride in Salisbury for the first time; the significant influence the Salisbury-Rowan Chapter of PFLAG had on Ms. Sheffield; the luck Salisbury Pride had with corporate sponsors and Ms. Sheffield's perspective on holding corporations and vendors accountable during events like Pride; how both positive and negative political developments of the 2010s affected the environment of Pride in Salisbury; and Ms. Sheffield's idea of inclusion as a step beyond diversity and the importance of Pride connecting with other organizations representing other marginalized groups to keep Pride relevant beyond the event itself.
