‘Ma Rainey’s’ Screenwriter Ruben Santiago-Hudson: ‘Black Women Were Revolutionary’
Ruben Santiago-Hudson As a person who fancies himself a historian, my life is built around celebrating people in our culture who paved the way for us all, so it’s hard to focus on any one person.But in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” we tell the story of this singular icon, Ma Rainey.She was a giant in her field and her time. What a lot of people don’t understand about the 1920s is that there were at least 100 blues women recording records — from Paramount to Columbia and with the smaller record labels.Great women like Ida Cox, Clara Smith and Victoria Spivey were recording.