The Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, actually, was an effort to put something on the mall in Washington so American tourists could walk through America, and in their minds everything on the mall would be American
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGONMost 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.
More Bernice Johnson Reagon Quotes
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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.
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I just don’t think one person has that much to contribute to any subject
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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.
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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
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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.
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There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.
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If you’re in a coalition and you’re comfortable, you know it’s not a broad enough coalition.
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I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved.
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If we dwell in a community that is comfortable, then it’s probably not broad enough a coalition.
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I was at the Smithsonian for twenty years, and I’m still at the Smithsonian as a curator emeritus, and I still plan to figure out what that means for me at this point in my life
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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.
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Coming up in the African-American culture, we were taught that we belonged to the universe and society was wrong in the way it dealt with us. We had to learn to express and affirm values not from the winning position.
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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.
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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
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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