Bernice Johnson Reagon
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Bernice Johnson Reagonis a singer, composer, scholar, and social activist, who founded the a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth4 October 1942
CountryUnited States of America
america effort mind
The Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, actually, was an effort to put something on the mall in Washington so American tourists could walk through America, and in their minds everything on the mall would be American
jobs community african-american
The first job I had with the Smithsonian was as a field researcher among African American communities in Southwest Louisiana and Arkansas for the festival.
winning african-american way
Coming up in the African-American culture, we were taught that we belonged to the universe and society was wrong in the way it dealt with us. We had to learn to express and affirm values not from the winning position.
rights people focus
I came out of the Civil Rights Movement, and I had a different kind of focus than most people who have just the academic background as their primary training experience
church loud saved
I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved
voice jail movement
The voice I have now, I got the first time I sang in a movement meeting, after I got out of jail... and I'd never heard it before in my life.
mean years twenties
I was at the Smithsonian for twenty years, and I'm still at the Smithsonian as a curator emeritus, and I still plan to figure out what that means for me at this point in my life
song thinking proof
And I used to think that proof that I had religion was whether I knew how to sing all of the songs.
song commercial-music rights
At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.
sweet rocks balance
I organized Sweet Honey In The Rock in 1973. The music was sanity and balance.
rights singing movement
The Civil Rights Movement also reaffirmed me as a singer. It taught me that singing was not entertainment, it was something else.
running sweet years
In fact when Sweet Honey was ten years old it was too big for me to run, and I knew it, but I ran it for another thirteen years because I couldn't convince other people to really do it. And this year, I'm not running it.
teacher white black
So one of the things that happened with integration in the South is they found that the black teachers were much more educated than the white teachers.
school festivals graduates
I started graduate school in 1971, I started working at the Smithsonian in the festival in 1972. I went full-time at the Smithsonian in 1974. And I got my doctorate in 1975.