Atlanta Cyclorama Presents Free Screening of Wild Women Don't Have The Blues

The Blues is an art form born out of African American economic and social conditions of the early twentieth century. It is rooted in the spirituals, field hollers and work songs of enslaves and sharecropper African Americans.

Wild Women Don't Have The Blues is a brilliant and revealing film that documents the lives and times of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters and other legendary African American women who made the Blues a vital part of American culture.

The documentary not only chronicles the history of the Blues and the women who sang this powerful music, it also traces how the Blues provided important cultural ties for many African Americans who left the rural south and migrated to northern cities during the Great Migration (1915-1940). It also shows the cultural shifts of the 1930's and how the Blues gave way to Swing and other more upbeat music genres.

After the film, historian and educator Nasir Muhammad will lead the audience in a facilitated dialogue.

This film screening is presented in partnership with Urban Film Review.