Galax is widely known as the “Old-Time Music Capital of the World.”
But who — and more importantly, whose race — is responsible for this distinction has become a dueling banjos of sorts that erupted recently into cries of racism and an online petition calling for a city councilman’s resignation.
The debate began harmoniously enough at the city council’s June 8 meeting. Galax Tourism Director Patti Price-Love and Erica Crookshanks, the head of Downtown Galax Grows, presented what they thought was the final design for a new mural meant to celebrate Galax’s musical heritage, attributed in part to its famed Old Fiddlers’ Convention.
Meant to adorn the blank side of the Barker Building, the mural would feature a Blue Ridge Mountains landscape accompanied by a joyful quartet of old-time musicians: a white male guitarist, a Black female bass player, a young white woman on banjo, and what appears to be a Hispanic female fiddler.
But the image struck a wrong chord with councilman Shane Coomes.
“So you think this represents Galax?” Coomes asked.
“I do,” replied Price-Love, who described the months of planning, the dozens of Galax residents involved in the design process, the support of the Barker Building owner’s family and the funding from a $20,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission through the ‘Round the Mountain Artisan Network.
Coomes wasn’t convinced.
“If you’re going to put a mural that large … there’s nothing on there about Fiddlers’ Convention, music center, Rex Theater, trains, New River Trail — you know, the people, the history, the music of Galax. To me that represents Galax zero, and I think we will hear about that if the public don’t know about it. … We’re known for music.”
“It’s musicians, so … ” Price-Love replied.
“That’s not musicians our town is known for,” Coomes said. “It might be another place but not Galax, and I think that you’ll get some opposition from people when it comes public. That might be something for Floyd, Virginia, but not Galax. … That does not represent Galax whatsoever.”
As recorded by Galax Gazette reporter Shannon Watkins, an extended discussion followed in which Coomes repeated his objections. Councilwoman Sharon Ritchie finally asked, “Is it because there’s a Black person on there?”
“You really want to go there?” asked Coomes.
“Yeah, I really do,” said Ritchie. “I mean, I don’t know what else it would be.”
Coomes replied, “If we’re going with people, we need to go with people who represent the music of Galax. That doesn’t do it. We disagree, OK?”
Mayor Beth White and councilmembers Evan Henck and Kathy Burnett joined Coomes in voting down the design in favor of one featuring just the landscape without the multicultural musicians. Voting against the motion were Ritchie, councilman Martin Warr and vice mayor Willie Greene.
A community project
All of Galax seemed united in February when ‘Round the Mountain announced the mural grant.
“Galax’s selection as the final mural in this regional initiative highlights the strength of its arts and music heritage,” said Kim Davis, executive director of Friends of Southwest Virginia and ‘Round the Mountain, in a news release. “Galax has embraced the power of the arts as a driver of community energy and economic vitality. This mural will stand as both a dynamic visual landmark and a testament to the city’s dedication to cultivating a vibrant, welcoming community for both locals and visitors.”
City Manager Michael Burnette added that the “funding of this latest mural in Downtown Galax is another instrumental step in the revitalization of the community. Galax prides itself on its abundant outdoor recreation, deep musical traditions, and its embrace of the arts. We proudly join with ‘Round the Mountain in protecting and celebrating our Appalachian arts heritage.”
Days later, Downtown Galax Grows, which works to “strengthen and grow downtown Galax as an authentic Appalachian destination and vibrant community for residents,” asked for the community’s input “to help capture the spirit of Galax!” Residents were surveyed to help the artist finalists develop design concepts for a “once-in-a-generation mural to be unveiled during the 250th Anniversary of the founding of this country in Summer 2026.”
Over the spring, as many as 64 Galax residents worked together to craft the final design, which tourism director Price-Love assumed would be rubber-stamped at the June 8 city council meeting.
Instead, a flustered Price-Love was left wondering aloud to the council if the grant’s impending deadline would accommodate the delay.
“I think if I go back and say council denied this design, and we have to redo it, then they’re going to have … I don’t know, they might say, ‘Well, then forget it, you’re not getting this grant.’ I don’t know. I don’t know. I wasn’t anticipating this, honestly. My apologies, I was not expecting this, so I wasn’t … I’m not prepared to answer those questions, because I wasn’t expecting this.”
Price-Love did not return calls for comment for this story, nor did Greene, the vice mayor and the only Black member of the council. Downtown Galax Grows’ Crookshanks declined to comment.
Burnette, the city manager, said an extension has been granted and he hopes the new rendering will be presented at the council’s next meeting July 13. The artist, who has not been publicly identified, will be available to paint the mural through early August, he said.
Reality or aspiration?
If Coomes was worried that the mural wouldn’t be in tune with Galax citizens, he didn’t anticipate the clash that has erupted from his council remarks and vote once they were reported in the June 17 Galax Gazette.
“So the newspaper article came out and I was appalled,” said high school senior Zarah Johnson. “I would point-blank say that his remarks were racist. It was really hurtful to me as a Black woman because this image, this mural, this beautiful mural, depicts a Black woman playing the bass … and a Hispanic woman. And so I personally felt unsafe having him represent me.”
Speaking during a break from Virginia Girls State at Longwood University, Johnson said she created a Change.org petition June 18 calling for Coomes’ resignation. As of Friday morning, it had garnered 167 signatures.
“He needs to know that this is unacceptable and that the people and citizens of Galax do not support this behavior,” Johnson said. “I thought that the best way to really reach him and to … basically public shame for behaving that way was a petition. And I also shared an email template format because you have to hit all cylinders when you’re trying to make change. So I’m sure his inbox is quite full.”
Quite full, Coomes confirmed recently.
“I’ve had emails sent about where the banjo originated from and all that, and I’m like, I don’t question any of that, you know?” said Coomes, who is in his first year on the council. “I’m just saying, this is what Galax going on 90 years has been known for, you know? So if we’re going to put up a mural, and put people in it, then it needs to be what has been here for 90 years. You know what I mean?”
Coomes’ objections to the mural weren’t based in racism, he says, but the reality of Galax and its musical history. He’s had Black friends since at least his days playing high school sports when teammates would come home after practice to eat supper, he says, “and now they’re just eating me up, you know, that I’m a racist, I’m a bigot, and I’m like, what did I do? I just made the point that I didn’t think it represented Galax.”
Indeed, based on Galax’s demographics, the artistic impulses behind the controversial mural may have been more aspirational than actual.
According to 2025 U.S. Census estimates, Galax’s 6,670 population is 80.4% white, 14.1% Hispanic and 4.9% Black.
No photos of people of color have been posted so far this year to the city visitor center’s Facebook page. Likewise for the website of the recent Hillybilly Dayz, an annual Galax festival for which this year’s Saturday night headliner band was Confederate Railroad.
“I mean, like I say, you can go through a thousand pictures and you won’t see that mural represent Galax,” Coomes said. “It has nothing to do with race or anything else. … I understand that you got arts and we got a liberal arts council and blah, blah, blah. But I mean, if you want to put something up that represents Galax, that don’t do it.”
Tracing the music’s roots
While the roots of bluegrass and old-time music are planted deep in Appalachia, perhaps its most distinct instrument — the banjo — can be traced directly to the stringed gourds brought to the region by enslaved Africans.
But despite their cultural connection to the music, Black Americans today just don’t do much bluegrass.
In her 2017 keynote to the International Bluegrass Music Association, Black musician Rhiannon Giddens, who had just won the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, asked:
“How do we get more diversity in bluegrass? Which of course, behind the hand, is really, why is bluegrass so white? Before we can look to the future, we need to understand the past. To understand how the banjo, which was once the ultimate symbol of African American musical expression, has done a 180 in popular understanding and become the emblem of the mythical white mountaineer.”
Giddens went on to say: “In order to understand the history of the banjo and the history of bluegrass music, we need to move beyond the narratives we’ve inherited, beyond generalizations that bluegrass is mostly derived from a Scots-Irish tradition, with ‘influences’ from Africa. It is actually a complex Creole music that comes from multiple cultures, African and European and Native; the full truth that is so much more interesting, and American.”
In a March interview in “The Bluegrass Standard,” famed Black fiddler Earl White, who now lives in Floyd, said Black Americans have a negative association with old-time and bluegrass music: “A lot of the Black community associate it with segregation and discrimination.”
He lamented this because it’s obvious the musical heritage grew out of both cultures in harmony. “In my opinion, the only way the Blacks could learn from the whites, or the whites learn from the Blacks, was that they were playing together.”
