How banning the African drum gave birth to American music | Chris Johnson | TEDxHudson

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. How can we understand a culture if its very means of communication have been banned? Chris Johnson examines the role of the drum in African American Culture and American History.

Contributing to the contemporary scholarship surrounding African American culture, Chris Johnson looks to the past and the present for defining symbols. Johnson is currently an independent scholar, most recently an Assistant Professor of Culture and Mediaat Eugene Lang College in New York City. As a Fulbright Senior Scholar, both teaching and doing research, at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universitat in Münster, Germany and a Research Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University, Johnson has focused on the role African culture has played in shaping ideas in American society. He and his wife reside in New York City and Hudson. | blackvistas.com

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