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 REAGONI went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved.
More Bernice Johnson Reagon Quotes
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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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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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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 REAGON -
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!
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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
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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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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.
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 went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved.
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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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When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
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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.
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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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There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON