Quotes from 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.

I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved.

There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.

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.

I organized Sweet Honey In The Rock in 1973. The music was sanity and balance.

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

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.

So one of the things that happened with integration in the South is they found that the black teachers were much more educated than the white teachers.

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.

The voice I have now, I got the first time I sang in a movement meeting, after I got out of jail... and I'd never heard it before in my life.

And I used to think that proof that I had religion was whether I knew how to sing all of the songs.

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.

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

When the culture is strong, you've got this consistency where black people can grow up in these places with this voice just resonating about our special-ness in the universe. And I always say you're in trouble if you get too far away from that core that grounds you.

I started graduate school in 1971, I started working at the Smithsonian in the festival in 1972. I went full-time at the Smithsonian in 1974. And I got my doctorate in 1975.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And I used to think that proof that I had religion was whether I knew how to sing all of the songs.

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.

My God calls to me in the morning dew The power of the universe knows my name Gave me a song to sing and sent me on my way I raise my voice for justice I believe -I Remember, I Believe

But I'm a historian. I wasn't interested in just being a producer, I was interested in doing research and presenting that research to a general public.