Bernice Johnson Reagon (born October 4, 1942) is a singer, composer, scholar, and social activist, who founded the a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973. Read full biography of 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... →
Personally I discovered that you could go through the academy as a young scholar, come out, and almost immediately have an impact on the academic... →
The first job I had with the Smithsonian was as a field researcher among African American communities in Southwest Louisiana and Arkansas for the... →
I organized Sweet Honey In The Rock in 1973. The music was sanity and balance.
I just don't think one person has that much to contribute to any subject.
I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved.
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... →
One of the biggest things I understood in a program like that was that it allowed more young African American scholars to do field research in the... →
But I'm a historian. I wasn't interested in just being a producer, I was interested in doing research and presenting that research to a... →
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... →
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... →
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... →
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... →
Bernice Johnson Reagon (born October 4, 1942) is a singer, composer, scholar, and social activist, who founded the a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973.