Southern california community choir biography of christopher

REVEREND JAMES CLEVELAND

Death of a Queer King
by Robin Dunn

I was a homeless, sixteen-year old runaway when two Black women in long robes and headscarves offered me a place to stay. They brought me home to a shotgun house in East Austin, where they lived communally, sheltered the homeless, and held religious services for hours on end. I'd never spent time in church, and in any case I'd never heard of one like this. With fewer than a dozen members, no sign to mark it, no painted windows, no cross. They said they were holiness, sanctified. I arrived queer, punk, and half-feral, but the church, with its sense of purpose, sisters and brothers, and hot meals, soon felt like family, a thing I lacked. I stayed for ten years, the only white girl in an otherwise all-Black church, trying and failing to be a saint.

When I joined the church I laid sex, drugs, and rock and roll down at the altar. Gospel, the old stuff, helped fill the musical void. I found a wealth of r What Really Happened to James Cleveland? - GOSPELHB.