Beside Highway 24
Appomattox, Virginia
The white Virginian Joel Walker Sweeney (1810-1860) learned to play banjo, an African instrument, from slaves on his father's plantation. His historical legacy is controversial-- he's been credited as inventor of the five-string banjo, which, while he may have been ahead of the game for picking a banjo with five strings while other players picked four, obscures the African roots of the instrument that reach back to at least the 17th century.
Thus, the rather odd "popularizer" title, certainly based on his experience as a touring musician who played banjo, but otehrwise immeasurable. I'd really like to know about how the banjo became popular. Did banjo sales and production sharply increase in burgs where Sweeney performed? The historical marker doesn't say. But hey, you know what a banjo is, don't you?
What seems undeniable is that Sweeney pioneered an American tradition that no one of his generation could have predicted the endurance of: white entertainers stealing black musical ideas and benefiting financially from their performance. Sweeney traveled internationally as a minstrel in the 1840s, sometimes as a member of the Virginia Minstrels with Dan Emmett.
Sweeney died in 1860 and was interred at the old Sweeney home place, not far from where Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to United States General Ulysses S. Grant to end the American Civil War in April 1865.
Joel's brother Sam Sweeney also plucked the old gourd, and traveled with Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry during the war.
