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When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.

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

Country Culture Winning
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
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

Rights School Thinking
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
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

Breathing Crazy Humility
When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Culture Rights School
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

Mean Twenties Years
If you’re in a coalition and you’re comfortable, you know it’s not a broad enough coalition.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Broad Coalition Enough
Mothering/nurturing is a vital force and process establishing relationships throughout the universe.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Establishing Force Process Relationship
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

Able Successful Thinking
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
Welcome to prekindergarten! You will not die if you discover that there are more lines out there than just your own. In fact, you’ll discover that you will have an advantage if you know more of them!
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Facts Justice Lines
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

Finding Lasts Moving Yourself
I just don’t think one person has that much to contribute to any subject
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Persons Subject Thinking
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

Hair Thinking Wise
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

People Song Thinking Understand