Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon, singer, song leader, civil rights activist, and scholar, has profoundly contributed to African American culture for over half a century. Though perhaps best known as the founder of the women's group Sweet Honey in the Rock, Bernice Johnson Reagon is also a noted political activist, Distinguished Professor at Washington's American University, and a curator emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution. Bernice Johnson was the third child of Beatrice and J.J. Johnson, a Baptist minister. She was born on October 4, 1942, and raised in southwest Georgia. Reagon began school at the age of three and by the time she was in fourth grade, was tutoring the younger students. Reagan was drawn to music early on, with her father a minister Reagon grew up in the church, which heavily influenced her musical upbringing. The church did not have a piano, so Reagon’s early music was a cappella, and her first instruments were her hands and feet, she explains, "that's the only way I can deal comfortably with creating music." Reagon joined her first gospel choir when she was just eleven years old and would listen to the local radio station WGPC to learn black gospel for the choir to recite. In addition to her time spent in church, Bernice’s schooling was also heavily involved with music. Her teacher would often lead the students outside to play games based on singing with their hands and feet. In 1959, Bernice entered Albany State College where she began her study of music and became involved in political activities. Some of her musical role models included Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Bessie Jones, and Bernice’s singing style and repertoire are grounded in her experiences in church, school, and political activism.

Bernice only spent a short time at Albany State College, she participated in the student sit-in movement of the spring of 1960 and was expelled after an arrest as an activist. During this time Bernice became active in Albany’s NAACP Youth Council and spent a semester at Spelman College in Atlanta. In 1962 along with Cordell Reagon, Rutha Harris, and Charles Neblett, Bernice founded the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) Freedom Singers. The SNCC was the first group of freedom singers to travel nationally, the group toured to raise money for SNCC projects and utilized singing as an outlet for protest. The group sang at political meetings and jails and also appeared at the 1963 March on Washington. The Freedom Singers were a catalyst for the Albany Singing Movement, which helped create vital change in the early 1960s protests of the Civil Rights era. Bernice married the group’s co-founder Cordell Reagon, and in 1964 left the Freedom Singers to bear her daughter, Toshi Reagon, who would grow up to become an accomplished musician. During this time Bernice also recorded her first solo album, Folk Songs: The South, with Folkways Records in 1965, and in 1966 was a founding member of the Atlanta-based Harambee Singers.

Johnson Reagon’s strongest musical collaborator is her daughter, Toshi Reagon. Collaboratively the duo has created two operas, the music for the Robert Wilson production, The Temptation of St. Anthony and Zinnias, The Life of Clementine Hunter, the music score for Africans in America; A Black Woman Speaks for HBO, and numerous studio recordings. Their latest project is an opera based on the novel Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. And whenever the opportunity presents itself, mother and daughter join each other on stage in live performances. In addition to her work in music Johnson Reagon has also released several publications including If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song Tradition, We Who Believe In Freedom: Sweet Honey In The Rock: Still on the Journey, and We'll Understand It Better By And By Pioneering African American Gospel Composers, Black People, and Their Culture. Reagon is revered as one of the top authorities in African American History. She is a recipient of the Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities, the MacArthur Fellowship, the Presidential Medal, the Charles E. Frankel Prize, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change Trumpet of Conscience Award, among others. And in April 2009 Reagon received an honorary doctoral degree from the Berklee College of Music.

Bernice Johnson Reagon currently resides in Washington, DC, she has devoted her life to social justice through music via recordings, activism, community singing, and scholarship.As a composer, she has created a narrative of her social and political activism through her songs and larger compositions. To Reagon, music is a means for affecting change in society, instilling a sense of heritage and cultural pride, and creating solidarity in the face of adversity, uniting people while simultaneously celebrating their differences.