Quote

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

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Bernice Johnson Reagon
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: October 4
Composer
Historian
Singer
Dougherty County
Georgia
Bernice J. Reagon
Sweet
Music
Sanity
Honey
Organized
Rock
Rocks
Balance

More quotes by Bernice Johnson Reagon

Image
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
Image
When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Image
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 environment.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Image
If you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Image
I just don't think one person has that much to contribute to any subject
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Mothering/nurturing is a vital force and process establishing relationships throughout the universe.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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