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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

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Bernice Johnson Reagon
Age: 81
Born: 1942
Born: October 4
Composer
Historian
Singer
Dougherty County
Georgia
Bernice J. Reagon
Voice
Firsts
First
Sang
Never
Jail
Time
Meeting
Life
Meetings
Movement
Heard

More quotes by Bernice Johnson Reagon

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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
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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
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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.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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Welcome to prekindergarten! You will not die if you discover that there are more lines out there than just your own. In fact, you'll discover that you will have an advantage if you know more of them!
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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If you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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Today whenever women gather together it is not necessarily nurturing. It is coalition building. And if you feel the strain, you may be doing some good work.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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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.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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The Civil Rights Movement also reaffirmed me as a singer. It taught me that singing was not entertainment, it was something else.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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If every moment is sacred and if you are amazed and in awe most of the time when you find yourself breathing and not crazy, then you are in a state of constant thankfulness, worship and humility.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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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
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And I used to think that proof that I had religion was whether I knew how to sing all of the songs.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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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
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Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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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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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.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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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 general public
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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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
Bernice Johnson Reagon