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 REAGONWhat 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.
More Bernice Johnson Reagon Quotes
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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 -
If you’re in a coalition and you’re comfortable, you know it’s not a broad enough coalition.
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 -
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
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON -
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 -
If we dwell in a community that is comfortable, then it’s probably not broad enough a coalition.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON -
There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.
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 -
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 -
When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON -
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 -
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.
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 -
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 -
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