- Welcome to "American Black Journal".

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

We are coming to you from our brand new studio space at the Detroit School of Arts, and it's really fitting that today's show is, in fact, all about the arts.

We're gonna begin with "Ruby: The Musical", which is coming to Detroit's Music Hall on February 7th through the 9th.

The production tells the true story of a scandal that rocked Florida in 1952.

Let's take a look at a preview.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Listen, and I will reveal a tale of the South.

This place, these people, I know well, but this story astounded me about a woman named Ruby McCollum and her husband Sam.

♪ They're the Isis, the king and queen ♪ ♪ King and queen ♪ Finest black folk we've ever seen ♪ ♪ Ever seen ♪ They're the picture of royalty ♪ ♪ And the top of the city get what we need ♪ ♪ Whoo, it's a party (rock music) ♪ I'll tell you a story ♪ I'll tell you a story ♪ Quite extra ordinary ♪ Extraordinary ♪ One for history to review ♪ To review ♪ A negro woman raised in the South ♪ ♪ In the South ♪ Kills a white Southern gentleman ♪ ♪ And leaves to tell about it (jazz music) - He is Dr. Clifford Leroy Adams, a physician and popular politician just elected to the Florida Senate.

Yes.

He's a very important man.

♪ Ooh, curious and peculiar ♪ For sure ♪ That it did not end by the news ♪ - The Music Hall's production of "Ruby: The Musical" is presented by the Michigan Chronicle and the Knight Foundation.

Joining me now is Hiram Jackson.

He is the CEO of the Michigan Chronicle's parent company, Real Times Media.

He's here with Nate Jacobs, who is co-creator of "Ruby: The Musical".

Welcome, guys, to "American Black Journal".

- Thank you.

- Thank you, Stephen.

- Yeah, so Nate, I'm gonna start with you.

Tell us the story of Ruby and the story of "Ruby: The Musical".

What inspired you about this story to make this this work?

- I have a 25-year-old theater company in Sarasota, Florida.

One of my patrons sent an email, and I've eventually took a look into the email and discovered the story of Ruby and Sam McCollum, and it blew me away being a native Floridian.

I had never heard of this true story of an affluent black couple, the most affluent black couple in North Florida, associating with a businessman, a politician, also, a medical doctor, Dr. Adams, and became business partners in many ways.

Both married couples began to socialize with each other a lot, and then one Sunday morning, Ruby McCollum walked into his doctor's office and killed him, shot him dead, and went home and fixed breakfast for her children, and it became the crime of the century.

To the point Zora Neale Hurston, a novelist and and poet, was hired by The Pittsburgh Courier to come down to find out why this black woman shot this man.

- Yeah.

- Why is she still alive?

Ku Klux Klan did show up to take her out of that jail and do what was the thing of the day.

- Yeah.

- Which was lynching.

- The lyncher, right?

- And they found out that she had been stolen away and hidden and found out there was a lot of mystery around why she shot him and why she is protected, and Ruby lived to be almost 80 years old.

They did have a trial that Zora Neal Hurston came down to cover, but the musical, it started off as a play.

I decided to make it a musical and wrote most of the music for the show, and an evening of Phenomenal Entertain, believe it or not.

(Stephen and Hiram laugh) - Yeah, I was gonna say.

- It's not really a sweet story.

(laughs) - Music of jazz and Gospel.

- Yeah.

- We have a 21-member cast of singers and dancers and actors, a six-piece orchestra, and we presented it at my theater for six weeks, and it blew the socks off of our audience.

- Wow.

- I was even taken aback, how powerful it was, 'cause it talks about a lot.

It's a history lesson in a very entertaining setting and talks about paramour rights that Zora Neal Hurston called it, when back in, even slavery days, white men would take the wives out of their homes and do whatever they want, and the husbands could do very little.

- Right.

- Because it would threaten the lot.

- Right.

- With their livelihood, and in 1952, that was still happening.

- And that's what was happening with these families.

- Exactly.

- Was that there was a romantic involvement of sort- - He was her doctor, gynecologist.

- Yeah.

- And they ended up starting having a relationship and had a baby together.

- Yeah, oh.

- A girl baby, and she was pregnant again, but mysteriously lost the baby when she was arrested.

- Yeah, yeah.

- For the killing, and so a lot of drama, a lot of music, a lot of intrigue, and the people are in for a really, really fascinating history lesson.

- Yeah.

- In a way they have never studied history.

- Right, right, right.

Hiram, talk about the Chronicle's involvement in bringing this to Detroit.

- So you know, in your introduction, you mentioned I'm the CEO of Real Times Media, and we have properties across the country.

One of which is The Pittsburgh Courier.

- Right.

- Which is, arguably, one of the most black newspapers in the history.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Of newspapers.

This gentleman here happens to be my cousin.

- (laughs) Yeah, right.

- I didn't know him seven years ago.

- Right.

- You know, we got random calls from Florida inquiring about our stories from The Pittsburgh Courier, our archives, Pittsburgh Courier.

Simultaneously, I was at a wedding for a cousin and bumped into Nate's brother, Michael, and Michael shared with me the story of Ruby McCollum and the fact that they had been trying to contact folks at The Pittsburgh Courier.

So it was an incredible coincidence here, incredible.

- Someone was aligning things.

- Aligning.

- For all of that to happen.

- Absolutely, - At the same time.

- So I dispatched one of my staff members to help them, and, literally, a year later, they invited me to the premier.

- [Stephen] Oh, wow.

- We shared the rights of our archives.

They produce an amazing story.

The music is original.

The wardrobe is of the period, and so I started going to Sarasota and was just blown away by the work that Nate had been doing.

I went to his 20th anniversary, incredible production, and we're storytellers.

- Yeah.

- And we have about two million images in our archives, and, to me, this was an untold black story.

- Yeah.

- And it really was a sweet spot for us.

We also owned the Chicago Defender, and it really inspired us as a company.

- Sure.

- To find more of these untold black stories, and with the challenges in print, we both know that.

- Yeah.

- We have been looking for other ways of storytelling.

- Of telling those stories.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- So there're so many connections here.

It's divine, and so I thought it would be appropriate for the Michigan Chronicle to be the producer.

- Yeah.

- Executive producer here in Detroit.

- Yeah.

- Because we have a great audience, people trust us, and it's just a way that we can share with our audience.

- Sure.

- An amazing story that hasn't been told much.

- Yeah, and it's a story that'll resonate here in Detroit obviously.

- Yes, absolutely.

- As many of us who are from the South and remember.

- Yes.

- Things like that.

I'm really curious.

You were staging this in Sarasota.

- We staged it as one of our main stage, our production at my theater company.

- Okay.

- We worked on it for three years.

Foundation was the writings of Zora Neal Hurston that she did for The Pittsburgh Courier.

- So what was the reaction in Sarasota where people probably didn't know the story?

- I have a predominantly white audience and Sarasota has a very small black community.

A lot of wealthy theater goers lived there.

They were coming out of the theater, tears coming out of their eyes, coming over to me, and saying, "Thank you for telling this story."

- Yeah.

- "Thank you for sharing this history about Ruby and Sam McCollum."

I was a little taken aback, because there's a lot we tell even to the point of Ku Klux Klan members coming out.

- Right.

- In a song that they do in the show, and they were so grateful that we was telling that history.

- Yeah.

- That taboo laid back history that everybody knows about but don't like to talk about, but Like Hiram was saying, but it is necessary.

- Yes.

- If you don't propagate history, you have a tendency to possibly repeat it.

- Sure.

- And the last thing we want to repeat is some of that stuff that's in "Ruby".

- Right.

- But it was so phenomenal to see black and white people respond the way they did.

I remember a busload of African Americans that had come from Clearwater, Tampa, and it was mostly black women, and in the parking lot, as they was getting back on the bus, I heard these women saying, "I can't believe they told this story."

(Hiram and Stephen laugh) So I walked over and I said, "Do you know what she said?"

"Oh, yeah, all of us on this bus know about this story," and then one lady said, "I was Ruby's neighbor.

I was standing in my kitchen, looking out of my kitchen window as they arrested her that morning."

- Wow, wow.

- And so even coming that close to this history that we found in the email and decided to propagate for the same purpose, I said, as the artistic director, "We need to tell this story."

- We need to tell it.

- "That patron was right," and even I got up the night the show opened, and she was in the audience, and she said, after the show, "You didn't tell everybody I sent you that."

- I told you, right?

- I was in the audience, and I was saying, "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't see you."

So then I started, she came back a couple of time.

Mrs.

So and So gave me an email.

So it was really eye-opening to me.

- Yeah, yeah.

- To see the power of "Ruby".

- The power of the story.

- And what it does to us as people.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And, timely, more than ever, right now in our country.

- Yes.

- That this should be on a stage.

- Yes.

- And here in Detroit.

- And here in Detroit.

Definitely, so come out- - February 7th through 9th, yeah.

Guys, congratulations on the work, and thanks for being here on "American Black Journal".

- Appreciate it.

- Thank you.