Quotes from 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.

The first job I had with the Smithsonian was as a field researcher among African American communities in Southwest Louisiana and Arkansas for the festival.

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

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.

One of the biggest things I understood in a program like that was that it allowed more young African American scholars to do field research in the Caribbean and in Africa than had ever happened before in the history of the country and since.

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

I just don't think one person has that much to contribute to any subject.

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.

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