Bernice Johnson Reagon

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

— Bernice Johnson Reagon

#discover #help #life #paralyze #supposed

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

#how #i #knew #proof #religion

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

#changed #civil #civil rights #civil rights movement #commercial

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. ↗

— Bernice Johnson Reagon

#doing #general #general public #historian #i

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

#background #came #civil #civil rights #civil rights movement

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

— Bernice Johnson Reagon

#contribute #i #just #much #person

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

#black #bring #day #how #i

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

— Bernice Johnson Reagon

#honey #i #music #organized #rock

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. ↗

— Bernice Johnson Reagon

#festival #full-time #got #graduate #graduate school

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. ↗

— Bernice Johnson Reagon

#figure #i #life #me #means