I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved.
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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At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.
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When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
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Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.
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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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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 -
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 -
If you’re in a coalition and you’re comfortable, you know it’s not a broad enough coalition.
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 -
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 -
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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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If, in moving through your life, you find yourself lost, go back to the last place where you knew who you were, and what you were doing, and start from there.
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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