I had a conversation about music recently with a white friend, a “folkie” who annually attends the folk music festivals that take place frequently here in the northeastern part of the United States. We were talking about the annual Clearwater Festival held in New York, which is not happening in 2020 due to a combination of financial issues and COVID-19. My friend mentioned that they rarely saw any Black people at these festivals, hypothesizing that “perhaps that’s because most folk singers and banjo players are white.”
I did a bit of a double-take, because I hadn’t thought of folk music that way—probably because I grew up surrounded by folk music and folk musicians of all colors, many of whom were Black. Instead, I always thought of their music as inextricably entwined with the politics of protest.
So, to continue my pandemic-driven series focusing on music, I’m offering a sampling of the vast repertoire that Black folk musicians have contributed, both to the genre and the struggle for freedom and justice.
