Hello and welcome to Queer as Fact. The podcast bring you queer history from around the world

and throughout time. I'm Alice. I'm Aere. I'm Eli. And today we're talking about the gospel

singer Sister Rosetta Thorpe. We have some content warnings before we start this episode.

There's going to be mentions of slavery and discussions of racism and segregation in the USA,

as well as the use of outdated language regarding African American people in quotes.

There's also a couple of mentions of domestic violence, the loss of a limb, and deaths in a fire,

including the deaths of children. So if any of that sounds like something you don't want to hear,

feel free to skip this episode and check out any of our other content. Before we get started,

I also wanted to mention our sponsor for this episode, Studio Sweden. Studio makes quality headphones.

They are beautiful and they have excellent sound quality. I don't think I'm

going to be able to use $5 headphones again, but that's okay. So I would encourage you to go to their

website, which is studio.com, sudio.com, to check them out. You can also use the promo code

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Additionally, I just feel like you should all know that as you can hear, we're all sick, especially me.

The others might be able to fake it, but I'm not doing a great job.

So just bear with the fact that I sound like I'm dying.

So Rosetta's born on the 20th of March in 1915, in the small town of Cotton Plant in Arkansas.

Her parents were Katie and Willis Atkins.

When Rosetta was six, Katie left Willis, took Rosetta and took the road as a travelling evangelist, eventually winding up in Chicago.

We don't really know Katie's motivations for leaving Willis.

Rosetta's biographer Gail Wald suggests that even at age six, Rosetta was already showing enough

musical promise that Katie saw the opportunity to make a living off her skills touring.

...