HISTORY
Black People Invented the Banjo. How Did They Become Unsung Heroes?
This society refuses to give Black people their flowers
While the banjo is often associated with white folk music in Appalachian culture, Black people were the first to create and play this instrument. Starting in the mid-1600s, the banjo was played almost exclusively by enslaved Black people "with West African heritage" in the North American and Caribbean colonies until the 1830s. Similar in appearance to a guitar, the banjo has a gourd-like body, a neck with four strings, three stretching the full length of the banjo, and a shorter thumb string "that stops about halfway up the side of the neck." Initially, white colonial culture characterized the instrument as too "primitive" for White hands. So, the irony isn't lost on the black community that the instrument has become a staple in Appalachian music. How did Black Americans become unsung heroes?
Music and the instruments people played are intricately tied to the cultural practices of that group. In this case, the racist culture of diminishing Black people and their inventions is tied to the history of the banjo. According to Johnny Baier, an executive director of the American Banjo Museum in Bricktown, Oklahoma, "white culture embraced the banjo kind of as their own in the…
