There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGONI 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
More Bernice Johnson Reagon Quotes
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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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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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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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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.
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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.
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I just don’t think one person has that much to contribute to any subject
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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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If we dwell in a community that is comfortable, then it’s probably not broad enough a coalition.
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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 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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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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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
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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.
BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON