Stories

How Islam Influenced Blues Music

Blues music is an American staple. In this Story, Dr. Sylviane Diouf, visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University describes the Islamic connection to the blues.

Origins of Enslaved Africans in the Americas

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A United Nations map featuring the Sahel region of Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea.

A slave-coffle passing the Capitol

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A black-and-white photocopy of a print from a wood-engraving labelled May 21, 1946. It shows a group - a dozen or so - of slaves walking together away from the United States Capital. The byline reads "A Slave-Coffle passing the Capitol."

The Stono Rebellion

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A color photograph of a sign taken at the site of the Stono Rebellion near Charleston, South Carolina. It reads, "The Stono Rebellion, the largest slave insurrection in British North America, began nearby on September 9, 1739. About 20 Africans raided a store near Wallace Creek, a branch of the Stono River. Taking guns and other weapons, they killed two shopkeepers. The rebels marched south toward promised freedom in South Florida, waving flags, beating drums, and shouting, 'Liberty!'"

A band of drums, Gold Coast Interior, Ghana

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A black-and-white photo of musicians from the Gold Coast, mainly in traditional West African dress, with their many drums and horns of various sizes.

Khora (chord violin)

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A painting of 2 musicians in blue robes - from the Senegalese and French Sudan Section of the Exposition Universelle (the Paris Worlds' Fair) - playing the kora while a man looks on from behind. The kora is a string instrument with a long hardwood neck that passes through a calabash gourd resonator; it is the traditional instrument of the Mandé people of West Africa.

Banjo, South Carolina

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A high-contrast, vibrant watercolor painting depicting 12 slaves of different ages and genders on a Coosaw River plantation. They are dancing and making music together. There is a curious interplay of seemingly contradictory cultural motifs - the slaves are dressed in the common attire of 18th century working-class America, playing banjo, and using European-style glass- and stoneware, while also utilizing traditional African gourd instruments, wearing headscarves, and forgoing footwear.

Kora (chord violin)

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A black-and-white print of a lithograph featuring musicians from West Africa by Major Alexander Gordon Laing, the first European to reach Timbuktu via the north/south route. The musicians are wearing cone hats and playing traditional stringed instruments such as the kora, with a thatched hut and palm trees comprising the background. It is labelled, "Jelleman of Soolimana; Jelleman of Kooranko."

Parchman Farm Blues Singers

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A color photograph of prisoners at the Mississippi State Penitentiary - also known as Parchman Farm - singing into a microphone. The photographer, Alan Lomax, an American ethnomusicologist who travelled the South extensively recording early American folk music, visited the farm compound on a few occasions and recorded what he found: black musicians-in-captivity who were pioneering new sounds with creative reappropriation of their work instruments. Some would go on to become successful artists after their release.