Whenever I talk about Ballroom history, I remind people that the doc, “The Queen”, which features Pioneer Mother Crystal LaBeija’s iconic read—which essentially sparked the creation of Ballroom as we know it—was filmed in 1967 and released in 1968, the year MLK was assassinated.

These events are related. The reason Crystal was so furious about losing the pageant to a much less qualified white queen, was not just her being dramatic. This was the height of the Civil Rights Movement. And at this time, Black queens also had to paint whiter to try and win.

Contextualizing them together in time not only brings MLK’s assassination and life closer to the modernity it occurred in by placing it next to NYC Drag culture, but it also frames Crystal and Ballroom history within the frame of the Civil Rights Movement that inspired them.

The speeches, riots, movements, and madness of the 1960s Civil Rights era, were going on outside of the town hall that Crystal made her famous read in. Those events took place during Crystal’s life and informed her fury of being discriminated against.

You can literally hear this in her read.

Lines like “Because Im declared as one of the uglier people of the world”, “Thats why all the TRUE BEAUTIES didnt come”, and “I have a RIGHT show my color”, all hit different when you realize Crystal was participating in the same pro-Blackness that was the movement of the times.