Monologue from "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" by August Wilson

"White folks don’t understand about the blues," says Ma Rainey in the play, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," set in a Chicago recording studio in 1927. This dramatic reading created for August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand is performed by Ebony Jo-Ann. The play premiered in 1984 at Yale Repertory Theatre and opened on Broadway the same year to win a New York Drama Critics Circle award.