Content Warning: Is This America? contains very strong, racially-loaded language, and references to violence.
Dear Friends of White Snake Projects,
We just celebrated the 60th anniversary of Fannie Lou Hamer’s “Is This America?” speech which rocked the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Rep. Maxine Waters of CA highlighted this anniversary in her own speech at the 2024 DNC. We are living in the moment, in the rush of history with the world premiere of Mary D. Watkins’ Is This America? Never has a work of music theater been so relevant, so timely, and so important.
You are part of history. Your participation in this show as an audience member, supporter, volunteer, donor, etc. contributes to the conversation about who we are as Americans, what we value, what we envision for the future, and where we want to go as a country, united.
America is divided now. We are living in turbulent times, full of angst and uncertainty. I don’t need to recount the many conflicts around the world and in our own backyards with the upcoming general election; we are living this every day. What can a small opera company do to contribute positively in this mayhem? What can an individual do in the face of these larger-than-life issues?
I think we are often paralyzed because we think our contributions too small, too insignificant to make a difference, and therefore we do nothing. That is wrong. Every small act of activism is a step towards building something kinder, better, more equitable in America and the world we are part of. We can do what we can.
You are powerful, you are vital, you are essential in the fight to preserve what America is. Sixty years on from Fannie Lou Hamer’s speech, we are still asking, “Is This America?” For much of what we experience, the answer is a resounding “NO!” But when we experience the myriad acts of kindness from family, friends and strangers, the answer is “YES!” There is much to respect in this great country. Let’s join together to answer this question “YES” in every respect: how we treat each other, how we treat our brothers and sisters in other countries, and how we uphold the values of freedom, self determination, democracy and independence in our private and public lives.
We see you, we hear you, we value you.
Be safe, be warm, be inspired.
—Cerise Lim Jacobs, Opera Maker + Founding Artistic Director, White Snake Projects
Notes from the Creators
I wrote the first version of Is This America? in 2008, the year that Barack Obama was elected president. His election was a direct result of all the hard work that Fannie Lou Hamer and thousands of others did to secure voting rights for African-Americans in the 1960s, and I wanted to write an opera that would tell their story.
At the time Fannie Lou Hamer became a leader in the civil rights movement, she was the quintessential example of the oppression and deprivation of poor African-Americans in the south. She was a gifted leader with a great native intelligence but only a 6th grade education. My goals have been to show the dignity and strength with which Fannie Lou Hamer and her fellow civil rights workers carried themselves in spite of the terror and dehumanizing treatment they were subjected to and to convey the great spirit of love that bound them together. Their story deserves to be told in a grand way – a way befitting the souls of the people who marched in the streets in the hot sun with such determination, singing through their fears while their opponents spit upon them, beat them, kicked them, called them vile names, terrorized their families, and imprisoned them.
For me, Is This America? has been the most meaningful and fulfilling endeavor of my life because it has given me a chance to salute the courageous and beautiful people of the civil rights movement. The opera is my gift of love to my community and to all of us who are looking for ways to keep moving forward and to deepen our understanding of ourselves and each other.
Welcome! Thank you so much for joining us in celebrating the life and important work of Fannie Lou Hamer.
Fannie Lou Hamer was a mother, daughter, sister, but above all she was a fighter and a believer in truth. Hamer found herself in a position where she knew that the only way to get the freedom and representation she and so many deserved was to fight power with truth. So much of the world then and still today continues to claim ignorance of the systemic racism that people of color, especially Black people have and continue to endure.
It is because of Fannie Lou Hamer and her testimony in 1964 that people like me are able to vote and cast their voice on the ballot. Fannie Lou Hamer once said “If I hate you because you hate me, I am no better than you are” and it is in her words that we are reminded how powerful hate can be in dividing our worlds. It also reminds us that hate has no place in the power of freedom, that hatred will never deny our freedom to exist and be.
It is not lost on me the times we are living, and to be honoring a powerful, strong and courageous Black woman in her fight for democracy seems especially fitting. To remind the world that Black women have fought to exist and be counted as one since the moment we were ripped from our home and brought here involuntarily. That there have been so many overlooked heroes and figures like Fannie Lou Hamer, Shirley Chisholm, Claudette Colvin, Pauli Murray, Barbara Smith and so many others. I hope that you lean in and listen to the words of not only Fannie but her family, friends and colleagues that stood by her through every hurdle they encountered in their fight for freedom.
It has been a privilege to bring her story to life in a way we rarely experience. Opera so often leaves out these particular stories and what a joy it has been to honor her legacy and truth through this medium. Fannie ends her testimony at the DNC with this line: “we want to live as decent human beings.” This is a sentiment to which we can all relate. A reminder that we are all connected and all wanting the same dream so why not give us all that same freedom. And as Fannie reminds us, it’s our duty and right as Americans to vote, to fight for democracy and freedom for all.
Dear friends,
I first encountered Mary D. Watkins’s music in 2012 as a Conducting Fellow at the Oregon Bach Festival working with Helmuth Rilling and Kathy Romey on Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. A member of the audience offered her music up for consideration in future programming. I was smitten by how Fannie Lou Hamer’s inspiring speeches were rendered into some of the most moving new music I had ever read. The music used the popular vernacular of our time and combined it with the grand drama of opera. We did a staged performance of the previous incarnation of Is This America? when it was still called Dark River at Mount Holyoke College, brought it to DC, and went on to arrange an oratorio version of it with Mary and even fashioned it into a Community Sing with colleagues at the Pioneer Valley Symphony and the West Village Chorale in the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
These past years have seen my relationship with the piece and Mary grow and deepen. I am so glad that we were able to develop several shorter operas together, including Courthouse Bells with the Boston Opera Collaborative, and I am a Lifer with White Snake Projects. Each of these allowed us to build the trust we needed to tackle the artistic challenges of the work.
Is This America? is thus the fruit of some twelve years of working together with Mary D. Watkins to realize the dream of telling the story of this incredible woman for “the upliftment of all people” to quote her from the opera. It is a rare privilege to bring to the stage, something so musically representative of our times and so pertinent to the political moment of our present. I hope these performances bring everyone hope and strength as we continue to “build the future for ourselves and the generations to come.”
Is This America? brings to life one of the most turbulent periods in American history.
It tells the story of Fannie Lou Hamer, the great Mississippi activist who galvanized the registration of Black voters in her home state despite overwhelming odds, including death threats, beatings, and rejections by her own constituency.
The title of the work is taken from the iconic speech Ms. Hamer made 60 years ago before the 1964 Democratic National Convention, when she petitioned the Convention to give her newly formed political party, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), seats at the Convention and to recognize the MFDP as the legitimate representative of the people of Mississippi.
A year later President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices.
Meet the Creative Team
Meet the Cast
Meet the Orchestra
Production Team
About White Snake Projects
White Snake Projects is an activist opera company making mission-driven work that unites artmaking with civic practice. We make socially relevant music theater/opera exploring difficult issues that resonate with our community, such as I Am A Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams (Dreamer), an immigrant story about what it means to be a new American; Fractured Mosaics, a response to the surge in anti-Asian hate crimes; and Cosmic Cowboy, a sci-fi opera meditating on the consequences of our colonizing impulses. Upcoming programs include MONKEY: A Kung Fu Puppet Parable, retelling the beloved Chinese classic “Journey to the West” through life-size puppets; and Is This America?, centered on the life of voting activist Fannie Lou Hamer.
Our community programming stands shoulder to shoulder with our “mainstage” programming. Show Out Boston! is our dynamic youth arts program celebrating the work of Boston’s youth arts organizations on a city-wide stage; and Let’s Celebrate is an annual series drawing on a wide range of cultural traditions to supplement traditional holiday programming with shows more reflective of Boston’s beautiful and diverse communities.
We see opera not just as performance, but as performance with purpose, a vibrant and vital art form that is also a champion of change.
Cerise Jacobs Opera Maker + Founding Artistic Director
Tianhui Ng Music Director
Linda Nadler Development Director
Curvin Huber Director of Innovation
Jon Robertson Inventor/Resident Audio Engineer
Jeffrey Petersen Production Manager
Flora Hollifield Arts Administrator
Andrés Ballesteros Community Director
April Thibeault (amt public relations) Public Relations
Justin DiMucci (Montague Digital & Design) Digital Marketing
Dan Dain, chair
Cerise Lim Jacobs, co-founder and clerk
Darcey Bartel
Carol Bramson
Pauline Ho Bynum
David Erlich
Niol Ma
Nyacko Pearl Perry
Miguel A. Rodríguez
Our Commitment to Activism
Sing Out Strong is a multi-year community-based project where we reach out to individuals in our communities and commission them to write texts on activist themes that resonate with them personally, such as immigration, colonization, essential workers and incarceration.
White Snake Projects is taking a major step in decolonizing opera and returning control of Indigenous stories to Indigenous people. We have received a Civic Practice grant from Opera America, opera’s national service organization, to establish The Indigenous Directory for Musical Storytelling. This directory, which will include musicians, performers, directors, designers, composers, writers, and other creators, will serve as a reference for the performing arts industry in casting, hiring and commissioning Indigenous creators and artists.
White Snake Projects recommits wholly and truly to continue to make opera that is unafraid to confront the injustices, large and small, in America today. We pledge to continue to elevate the voices of BIPOC creators and artists. We vow to continue exploring new ways of making opera which transforms a white, Eurocentric, male dominated art form into one that reflects the beautiful and powerful diversity that is America. We reaffirm our passion to make work that revolutionizes how we view marginalized communities. We rededicate ourselves to creating opera that may not sit comfortably with established norms and to change the status quo. We resolve to tell stories that move people to action, to expose, clarify, and uplift us all to social justice goals.
White Snake Projects is located on the traditional unceded homelands of the Massachusett. The area has long been a gathering center for Indigenous peoples including those from the Wampanoag, Nipmuc and other nations. Members of greater Boston’s urban Native American community from many Native American and Alaska Native communities continue to contribute to the life of this city and to celebrate their heritage, practice traditions, and care for the land and waterways. We celebrate their contributions and acknowledge the privilege of working on this land.
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Acknowledgements
“IS THIS AMERICA?” was commissioned by WHITE SNAKE PROJECTS
White Snake Projects’ 2024-2025 programming is supported by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation. Our programming is also supported the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mass Cultural Council, the Boston Cultural Council, Reopen Creative Boston Fund, administered by the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and the Ditson Fund.
This production of “Is This America?” has been commissioned by WHITE SNAKE PROJECTS. Previous workshop versions of this opera, formerly known as “Dark River: The Fannie Lou Hamer Story,” were presented by Oakland Opera Theater in 2009 and by WomenArts in collaboration with the Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra in 2014. Concert versions were presented by the Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra in 2015 and by WomenArts in collaboration with the Agnes Scott College Community Orchestra in 2016.
The Strand Theatre is owned by the City of Boston and managed by the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture