Jackie Murray – Memphis Flyer

Jackie Murray/Facebook

Murray as Tubman, left, and in a promo photo, right.

They probably don’t know they’re talking with Harriet Tubman.

When some Memphis Housing Authority (MHA) residents get a check-in call from the city of Memphis, they will hear the clear, energetic voice of Jackie Murray. They may not know, however, that she honed that voice on the stage.

Before the virus hit, Murray had come back to Memphis, singing and acting at theaters around town. She’s been performing her one-woman show “Harriet Tubman: One Woman’s Journey,” which Murray wrote, across the Mid-South since 2012.

Right up until stay-at-home orders came down, Murray had been hosting African-American tours of Memphis for A Tour of Possibilities. Even though tourists kept signing up for the tours (one couple from New York came to Memphis just for the tour and ended up spreading coronavirus all over the country, she said), Murray eventually found herself out of work.

Murray’s boss shot her an article about job opportunities with the city of Memphis, a partnership with Vaco. The consulting and staffing firm quickly organized a remote call center in Memphis staffed primarily from workers in the hospitality and restaurant sector, said Kirk Johnson, managing partner of Vaco in Memphis.

The effort is funded by a grant through the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis and targets MHA residents, a typically underserved and unemployed segment of the Memphis population.

Murray passed the screening and started work with the call center. On the job, she calls these residents, asks them how they’re doing, probes them for any COVID-19 symptoms, reminds them to take preventive measures, and tells them what resources are available to them.

When Murray calls these residents, they may not know her famous stage voice. But, she says, they always appreciate her lending an ear. — Toby Sells

Memphis Flyer: Sounds like the program came along at just the right time for you.

Jackie Murray: It’s been very helpful, especially now. You know, I have to pay my rent and I have to eat. Even though it’s not a lot of money nor is it a lot of hours, at least it’s something, and I appreciate that.

I also appreciate the fact that I’m helping others through this. One of my mottos with my art and my artistic abilities is that I want to make a difference through the arts. That means I love to help people. I love to be out in the community. I volunteer often and I just try to make a positive difference, spread good vibes.

MF: Yes, and you’re serving a population that can really use it right now.

JM: I can reach out to some of the residents, some that are a little underserved at this time and give them at least a little information.

Sometimes during these calls, some people want to open up and talk about what they’re going through. A lot of people are alone right now, like myself. I’m single. I live alone. So, it gives them an ear. Even if it is for a couple of minutes, they get to vent a little bit about what they’re going through.

Luckily, with the folks that I’ve been speaking with, nobody had any symptoms of COVID-19, which is great.

MF: Before we go, do you have any idea when we may see Harriet Tubman back on stage?

JM: I have been getting a few requests to do a live stream. My biggest hurdle for that is finding a space where I can do it, someplace big enough to do it.

I am proud to set up a camera and all of that, but I don’t want to do it at home. I want to be able to give people that experience. But I don’t want it to look like, you know, let me go over here and sit on my couch.

The 2019 film Harriet is the most recent major artistic interpretation of the life of the abolitionist/activist/spy Harriet Tubman. The American heroine has long been celebrated in theater, opera, literature, postage stamps, and fine arts.

Jackie Murray knows all about that. Since 2012, the Memphis actor/singer has been performing a one-woman show of Tubman’s life to audiences around the region. There is a certain inevitability in how it came about. A few years before she embarked on her Tubman crusade, Murray was sick in a hospital in Washington, D.C. And she was frightened. She remembers it as something of a Danny Thomas moment before he made the big-time in entertainment and was inspired to create St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: “I said, God, if you let me out of this situation, I will go back to Memphis, and I’m going to sing and act and do what you put me on this earth to do.”

Harriet Tubman (left) comes to life in Jackie Murray’s one-woman show.

She got out of the hospital and headed back to Memphis. “As soon as I put my car in park, my phone rang and it was one of the local theaters asking, ‘Are you back? Do you want to do a show?’ I was like, well look at that!”

Murray got into productions at Playhouse on the Square and other theaters around town. She became a member of the company at Hattiloo Theatre. And soon enough, she felt the need to write a play. The Imperial Dinner Theatre in Pocahontas, Arkansas, encouraged her, and she determined she’d do a biographical play.

Tubman kept coming to the fore. “The more that I did my research, the more her personality started to shine,” Murray says. “I also read that she had a one-woman show after the Civil War. She needed a way to make money, and one of her gigs was to go around and tell about the atrocities of slavery through her performance. So I was like, well that’s it.”

The next performance of Murray’s Tubman tribute — Harriet Tubman: One Woman’s Journey — is at 7 p.m. on Thursday, February 20th, at Elmwood Cemetery (elmwoodcemetery.org).

She’s done dozens of performances in the Mid-South since the first one at Hattiloo in 2012. “It’s said that Harriet had a beautiful singing voice,” Murray says, “even though it was raspy because of what she had gone through as a child when she got really sick.

“I envisioned her standing on the bank of the river, speaking and singing to these folks, those enslaved Africans, and letting them know, okay, this is what’s up and this is what we needed to do,” Murray says. “So that’s how the whole premise of how I was going to present it happened — I turn the audience into the runaways, and we’re taking this trip together.”

She booked the show in Arkansas mostly, then into Mississippi and Tennessee. She became a teaching artist with the Tennessee Arts Commission, and that expanded the performances of Tubman’s life around the state, particularly in schools.

That eventually led to Murray being contacted by a booking agent who needed someone to play Tubman at an event in Nashville. “I was to be in character and walk around with other historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant,” she says. The event was sponsored by the A+E Networks, which includes the History Channel, Lifetime, FYI, and Biography, among others. And that gig led to her being asked to attend the upcoming A+E HISTORYCon the first week in April in Pasadena, California, where she’ll perform and be part of a panel discussion.

It just shows how busy Murray’s life has been. She’s been nominated as Best Actress by PLAY Enterprises, publisher of PLAY Magazine that covers urban theater. That event is the end of March in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, she’s working on another play, Aspire, about a young gifted girl who must, in adulthood, rediscover her inspiration.

And when she’s not doing all of this, she is a guide with A Tour of Possibilities that gives visitors a look at African-American history in Memphis. The tour goes from Downtown to Cotton Row to Slavehaven to the Mason Temple and the National Civil Rights Museum. She puts her all into conducting those tours, just as she does her Tubman performances and everything else she endeavors. “I give it some soul and bring the city to life to let people know there’s way more to Memphis than Elvis and barbecue.”