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
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 thinking people
I learned that if you bring black people together, you bring them together with a song. To this day, I don't understand how people think they can bring anybody together without a song.
wise thinking years
What would you be like if you had white hair and had not given up your principles? It might be wise as you deal with coalition efforts to think about the possibilities of going for fifty years.
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
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
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.
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.
moving finding-yourself lasts
If, in moving through your life, you find yourself lost, go back to the last place where you knew who you were, and what you were doing, and start from there.
people asking firsts
Well, the first time I ran into the term religion, people were asking whether you had any. You know, some people had religion and some people didn't have religion