black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

Bernice Johnson Reagon

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

Community Country Jobs Researcher
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.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Commercial Music Rights Song
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.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Academic Environment Impact
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

Country Culture Winning
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

Movement Rights Singing
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

Asking Firsts People
I just don’t think one person has that much to contribute to any subject
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Persons Subject Thinking
Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Business Motivational Stay Strong
I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Church Loud Saved
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

Focus People Rights
There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Peace People Ubuntu
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

Running Sweet Years
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

May Together Work
When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Culture Rights School
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

People Research Trying
And I used to think that proof that I had religion was whether I knew how to sing all of the songs.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Proof Song Thinking