Last week while looking for images to go with a blog post mentioning Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” I stumbled across pictures of another Macbeth, “Macbeth the Great.” This was the performing sobriquet of Patrick MacDonald, a Calypso singer active in New York City in the 1940s. In some of the photos, which are part of the William P. Gottlieb collection at the Library of Congress Music Division, Macbeth the Great appears with fellow calypsonians Duke of Iron (Cecil Anderson) and Lord Invader (Rupert Grant). Macbeth the Great (Patrick MacDonald) sings and plays chac chac, as maracas were known in the ..read more

We’re continuing the Homegrown Plus series with an entertaining and educational concert and interview by Reverend Robert B. Jones, Sr., an inspirational musician and storyteller celebrating the history, humor, and power of American roots music. His deep love for traditional African American and American music is shared in live performances that interweave timeless stories with original and traditional songs. For more than thirty years Robert has entertained and educated audiences of all ages in schools, colleges, libraries, union halls, prisons, churches and civil rights organizations. He brou ..read more

Back in February, we were delighted to host the first Homegrown concert of 2023 here at the Library of Congress. The concert was a solo performance by the banjo player, fiddler, and singer Jake Blount, an award-winning musician and a scholar of African American musical traditions. We presented Jake as part of Live! at the Library, the series featuring extended visiting hours and special programming every Thursday night. It was also part of the Black History Month celebrations at the Library of Congress and was presented in cooperation with the Folklore Society of Greater Washington. Like ..read more

It’s time for another Classic Edition of Homegrown Plus! Until 2018, we weren’t recording most of our Homegrown interviews on video and we hadn’t yet thought of Homegrown Plus. But there are some concert videos from that era that deserve the Homegrown Plus treatment of placing concert videos together with an interview or other related video in an easy-to-find blog post. So embedded in this blog post, you’ll find two concert videos (from 2009 and 2013) with the Northern Kentucky Brotherhood Singers, a 2013 interview video, and a set of links to explore. The Northern Kentucky Brotherhood Singers ..read more

This is a guest post by AFC Senior Folklife Specialist, Nancy Groce.  The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is kicking off 2024 with the much-awaited fifth season of America Works, a podcast series celebrating the diversity, resilience, and creativity of American workers. The new season, launched today, highlights African American men and women who are business owners, farmers, craftspeople and professionals; fellow Americans whose labors create and sustain their communities. The first episode is available today, February 8, 2024, on Apple Podcasts and at loc.gov/podcast ..read more

The following is an excerpt of an interview with Tameshia Rudd-Ridge and Jourdan Brunson of the Dallas, Texas Community Collections Grant project, If Tenth Street Could Talk, as part of the Library’s Of the People blog series featuring awardees of the American Folklife Center’s Community Collections Grant program.  Jourdan Brunson and Tameshia Rudd-Ridge, founders of kinkofa, researching at Dallas Municipal Archives for the ‘If Tenth Street Could Talk’ project. Photo by Tyana Danae of Script16 Studios. Used with permission. Leading the If Tenth Street Co ..read more

In this guest blog, Dr. John Edgar Tidwell, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Kansas, focuses on the critical importance of Sterling A. Brown’s work as Editor on Negro Affairs for the Depression-era Federal Writers’ Project, and his efforts in the struggle against racial inequality by “authenticat[ing] the representations of Blacks in the American Guide Series travel guides.” The response to his work by authorities speaks volumes about the repressive political climate that sought to suppress any research and analysis of societal conflict and injustice such as Brown’s. Dr. Tidw ..read more

The following is a guest blog post by Veterans History Project (VHP) participant Paul LaRue, a retired social studies teacher in Washington Court House, Ohio. As an educator, you are always looking for projects that make a difference in the lives of your students, and, if you are lucky, in your community.  I found that when I came across the Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP). From 2003-2010, my students interviewed 68 veterans for the VHP. Our classroom became a safe space for veterans to share their stories of service while my students learned history directly from those ..read more

This guest post announces a new research guide focused on African American banjo players by sharing the motivation behind the guide and highlighting some of the content. The author, Joe Z. Johnson, is one of the Center’s 2023 Bartis Folklife Interns and produced the guide as his primary project during his internship– and this valuable resource will greatly enhance discoverability and access for materials held at the Library of Congress. Joe is a multi-instrumentalist, arts educator, and Black music researcher currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Indiana University (read more abou ..read more

The Veterans History Project (VHP) is proud to offer a new online exhibit, part of our vast array of curated thematic presentations collectively known as Serving: Our Voices. Previously known as Experiencing War, these exhibits are part of VHP’s new website, which debuted Veterans Day 2022. These presentations provide users with a specially selected set of collections centered on a particular theme, offering immediate access to content-rich oral histories and other original primary-source materials. The newest installment of Serving: Our Voices focuses on the experiences of African American wo ..read more