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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

Related Topics

May Together

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
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
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
If we dwell in a community that is comfortable, then it’s probably not broad enough a coalition.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON

Community
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

Actually Festival Something
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

Lasts Moving
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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

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
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