Category - Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

When the culture is strong, you’ve got this consistency where black people can grow up in these places with this voice just resonating about our special-ness in the universe. And I always say you’re in trouble if you get too far away from that core that grounds you.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

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.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

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.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

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.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

I organized Sweet Honey In The Rock in 1973. The music was sanity and balance.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

It makes sense that whatever the topic is, it’s more compelling if you can provide the audience with a range of perspectives, and you can cross disciplines. And you don’t have to control what people take out of it.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

I just don’t think one person has that much to contribute to any subject.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

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.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Most people come out of their Ph.D. experience trying to prove themselves, trying to get ahead, trying to get published. You’re scared everybody else is going to do your research and get your topic.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

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.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

If I had been at a University I don’t think I would have been able to have the experience I had in my Smithsonian work. I don’t think I have been as successful.

– Bernice Johnson Reagon

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