“You know, because so much of the book takes place in those decades, it shows how much music was so instrumental in protecting people, you know, giving them a sense of solidarity, giving them a sense of the future that they could fight for, that they weren’t just fighting against something, but they were creating something new. And I think we always have to keep our eyes on that, that ‘what are we actually creating and proposing?’
We want to create a new world.”
This quote is from an interview with none other than Benjamin Barson; a composer, historian, and activist, who serves as an Assistant Professor in the Music Department at Bucknell University. I had the honor to talk to Dr. Barson about his book, Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons, which was a finalist for the 2025 MAAH (Museum of African American History) Stone Book Award, an award dedicated to authors such as Barson who write non-fiction literature on African American history and culture.
In his writing and research, Dr. Barson focuses on the cultural exchanges between Mexican and African American musicians in New Orleans, while also examining the historical connections between slavery, Jim Crow, and fascism. During the interview, he emphasized the importance of music as a tool for solidarity and vision-building, discussing his approach to writing a complex history that goes beyond single-sided narratives and his future plans to adapt his book into various formats to reach wider audiences.
With this type of writing, I feel it is so important for people to see authors like Dr. Barson engage in spaces such as these which allow for a greater understanding that with consciousness and an open-mind, we are able to learn a lot from the differences of others and how they may affect or even benefit our lives in the long run. I truly appreciated this interview as somebody who has actually worked with several African-American political musicians in the booming city of New York in a group called The Scientific Soul Sessions. Benjamin Barson has challenged the ways many have traditionally studied this topic, actually experiencing it firsthand. We here at the Griot Institute thank you for your dedication to your craft and give you the biggest congratulations for your work.
– Jesse Leon