Pauli Murray was a civil rights pioneer and queer Black woman whose work shaped modern movements for racial and gender equality. But her activism isn’t taught in many classrooms. The cantata, Sincerely Yours, Pauli Murray brings her experience to the stage.
“It's just extremely an eye-opening story of what can and does just kind of slip through the cracks in our textbooks,” said Sydney Houlton, board chair of the Quire of Eastern Iowa, an inclusive LGBTQ community choir.
The choir recently put on the first Iowa performance of the cantata. Houlton and artistic direct Elena Cressey joined Talk of Iowa to share Murray’s story, including her early focus on intersectionality.
“She was both Black and a woman, and there was a lot of energy behind the Civil Rights Movement, and she wanted to also put energy towards the women's rights movements,” said Cressey. “And so after the whole Jim Crow legislation and all of the legal legalities that went into that, she termed ‘Jane Crow’ to basically kind of describe her experience as both a woman and a Black person in 20th century United States.”
