Bernice Johnson Reagon (born October 4, 1942) is a song leader, composer, scholar, and social activist, who in the early 1960s was a founding member of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC) Freedom Singers in the Albany Movement[1][2] in Georgia. In 1973, she founded the all-black female a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, based in Washington, D.C.[3] Reagon, along with other members of the SNCC Freedom Singers, realized the power of collective singing to unify the disparate groups who began to work together in the 1964 Freedom Summer protests in the South.[4]
"After a song", Reagon recalled, "the differences between us were not so great. Somehow, making a song required an expression of that which was common to us all.... This music was like an instrument, like holding a tool in your hand."[5]
The Albany Singing Movement became a vital catalyst for change through music in the early 1960s protests of the Civil Rights era.[5][6] Reagon devoted her life to social justice through music via recordings, activism, community singing, and scholarship.[7][8][9][10]
She earned her Ph.D. from Howard University becoming a cultural historian, centered on the role of music, and is an emeritus faculty member in the History Department at The American University.[11] She has also been a scholar-in-residence at Stanford[12] and received an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music.[13]
^"Freedom Singers". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
^"Albany Movement". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
^"Message from the Founder - Sweet Honey in the Rock®". Sweet Honey in the Rock. Archived from the original on 2018-06-13. Retrieved 2017-01-29. First public appearance of Sweet Honey In The Rock at Howard University's W.C. Handy Blues Festival. The group is Bernice Johnson Reagon, Carol Maillard, Louise Robinson, and Mie.
^Hayes, Eileen M. (2010-10-01). Songs in Black and Lavender: Race, Sexual Politics, and Women's Music. University of Illinois Press. p. 66. ISBN 9780252091490.
^ abGiddings, Paula J. (2009-10-06). When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America. Harper Collins. p. 279. ISBN 9780061984921.
^Harris, Norman (1988). Connecting Times: The Sixties in Afro-American Fiction. Jackson and London: Univ. Press of Mississippi. pp. 136–7. ISBN 9781617033704. albany singing movement paula giddings.
^"Bernice Johnson Reagon: Civil Rights song leader". Smithsonian Folkways. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
^"Bernice Johnson Reagon: Album Discography". AllMusic. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
^"Bernice Johnson Reagon". Americans Who Tell The Truth. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
^Reagon, Bernice Johnson (2001). "If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me". University of Nebraska Press. Archived from the original on 2017-02-02. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
^"Emeritus Faculty with the History Department at American University". www.american.edu. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
^"Bernice Johnson Reagon in residence". Stanford University. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
^"Bernice Johnson Reagon on Freedom Fighting". Berklee College of Music. Retrieved 2017-01-29.
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