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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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Bernice Johnson Reagon
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: October 4
Composer
Historian
Singer
Dougherty County
Georgia
Bernice J. Reagon
Together
Coalition
Women
Coalitions
Today
Nurturing
May
Gather
Feel
Strain
Feels
Necessarily
Work
Whenever
Good
Building

More quotes by 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
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I organized Sweet Honey In The Rock in 1973. The music was sanity and balance.
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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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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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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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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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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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
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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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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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I just don't think one person has that much to contribute to any subject
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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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
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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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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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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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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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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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Mothering/nurturing is a vital force and process establishing relationships throughout the universe.
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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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