A Look Back: May 7

50 Years Ago

■Members of the Living Theater Collective of New York City and area college students staged a combination political demonstration and theatrical performance in front of the Hampshire County Courthouse yesterday afternoon to protest “racism and political oppression.” Julian Beck, a founder of the Living Theater Collective, said that the demonstration was the result of a seminar in “new theater forms” at Amherst College Sunday.

■A former Smith College faculty member was awarded a special citation in the field of music yesterday by trustees of Columbia University and the advisory board for Pulitzer Prizes. Roger Sessions, 77, a native of Brooklyn, began teaching music and composing at Smith in 1917. He is the father of John Sessions, an associate professor of music at Smith.

25 Years Ago

■A chunk of the sprawling Cutlery Building on Riverside Drive in the Bay State section of the city has been sold by comic book magnate Kevin Eastman to the owner of a growing employee-benefits consulting firm. Robert L. Cummings, president of American Benefits Group, bought the space that formerly was home to comic book publishers Tundra Publishing Co., which evolved into Kitchen Sink Press.

■Nearly 30 elementary school teachers and technology coordinators from western Massachusetts school districts will gather in Northampton today to learn how to use computers to enrich class curricula. Sponsored by the Williamsburg Elementary Schools Technology Lighthouse Program, the program includes two seven-hour workshops at The Inn at Northampton.

10 Years Ago

■Northampton is joining the chorus of regional voices raising concerns about a new natural gas pipeline that would stretch through the northern reaches of western and central Massachusetts. Though the proposed Tennessee Gas Pipeline is not planned to run through Northampton, a proposed route has it cutting through Plainfield and nine Franklin County towns, including Deerfield.

■With a working title of Village Hill Cohousing, a new multigenerational community, which is in the works for Village Hill Northampton, will feature 30 homes and be part of a larger development planned by Transformations Inc., a Townsend company that aims to build up to a total of 83 homes on a 35-acre site at the far north section of the Village Hill’s north campus.