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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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Bernice Johnson Reagon
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: October 4
Composer
Historian
Singer
Dougherty County
Georgia
Bernice J. Reagon
Thinking
Sing
Songs
Knew
Whether
Religion
Song
Used
Think
Proof
More quotes by 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
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
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
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
I just don't think one person has that much to contribute to any subject
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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
When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
If you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition.
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
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
I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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
Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
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
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
There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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
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
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
I organized Sweet Honey In The Rock in 1973. The music was sanity and balance.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
