The end of the Summer is a time for harvesting the amazing experiences and learnings from the growth over the last few months.

For the second year in a row, team members from the Black Banjo Reclamation Project created and taught programming to youth on Chicago’s historic West Side. Sule Greg Wilson, Red Branch and Hannah Mayree along with guest artists, Aja Black and Big Samir of the Hip-Hop duo, The Reminders, rock and folk cross-over artist, Tommy Diestel, Ethnomusicology PhD Graduate Student Joe Joesephs, and song-leader and BBRP builder Patrice Strahan were able to join and share their knowledge with the students as they learned to play and build their instruments. 

After 5 weeks of meeting Monday through Friday every afternoon, we celebrated the full moon and the completion of our Summer program! We proved this year that it is never too early to be a steward of musical and craft traditions! We worked with a group of 9-12 year old children who all were incredibly gifted, fun and inspiring.

The second year of our partnership with Music Moves Chicago and the Old Town School of Folk Music has allowed us to continue learning and connecting with local community. We continue evolving our programming for different age groups and working with adults to continue leading and stewarding cultural knowledge in our present-day world. 

Our most adorable cohort yet has been inspiring and opening our hearts to the power of growth and learning in community. Thank you for reading our blog updates about our latest happenings. There are many more to come but for now we are so happy to have completed another banjo build!

Precious moments with TEAM BANJO CLASS Chicago Summer 2022! 

Black & White photos by Suliyman Stokes