I know of at least one really good black Bluegrbutt banjo picker in southern California, a fellow name of Curtis Wright. Also, Taj Mahal won the first three consecutive Topanga banjo and Fiddle contests way back when in the 1960s.

You'd have to ask a bunch of American blacks why so few of them are attracted to the banjo these days, but I suspect that all of your reasons may have something to do with it, along with one other possibility: black American music has often been on the cutting edge of creativity, including styles such as Blues, Ragtime, Jazz, Rock, Etc. It may be that banjo music is simply too old-fashioned to attract people who are searching for the next big thing rather than looking back at what has already been explored.

Bluegrbutt music *did* begin in the American south, and might well have negative social connotations to present-day blacks, but the music itself -like all forms of current American music- is deeply imbued with the heritage of black American music forms; the Blues in particular.

Bill Monroe made it no secret that he'd been heavily influenced by the black musicians he'd heard as a child, and so did Elvis Presley.

Pete