I've been listening to country music all my life.
I have records of black fiddlers. (Violin, Sing the Blues for Me—check it out!)
I have records of white country blues.
At times I have been unable to tell by listening if it was white or black musicians.
And yet it never occurred to me that COUNTRY MUSIC ITSELF IS BLACK.
Not just an occasional Charley Pride or Darius Rucker, but black all the way back.
By which I mean to say, country music has never been a white space that a few blacks snuck into. It's portrayed that way, but that's not the truth. Even the revered A. P. Carter is kind of the Elvis of country, finding (or at least polishing up) his songs & style in black churches & other places.
Here's a really good article in Rolling Stone on the subject. I love how unsegregated music is at its essence, no matter what stories are told about it to whose benefit (one guess as to that).