Bernice Johnson Reagon’s Lessons for Living

Reagon was born in 1942 and brought up in Albany, Georgia, immersed in a close-knit Black community that instilled in her a profound understanding of the importance of Black cultural expressions. According to Reagon, “My history was wrapped carefully for me by my fore-parents in the songs of the church, the work fields, and the blues.” Raised by her parents, Beatrice and Reverend Jessie Johnson, within a supportive network of extended family, she developed a lifelong dedication to preserving and celebrating this diverse Black tradition through music and culture.

Upon enrolling at Albany State College, she actively participated in the Albany Movement, a Civil Rights campaign during the early 1960s. According to Reagon she pursued this activism “against the caution lights of my parents.” The decision to defy her parents was crucial in Reagon's journey. As she put it, “I found that I had the capacity to think for myself.” Her involvement led to her 1961 arrest and expulsion from college, ultimately propelling her toward her life's calling: utilizing song to “articulate collective testimony to all who stood within the sound.”

A year later, in 1962, Reagon, along with Cordell Reagon, (with whom she shared a marriage from 1963 to 1967), Rutha Harris, and Charles Neblett, established the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) Freedom Singers, a quartet that utilized music as a strategic tool for protest, stemming from the Albany Movement. The group toured the country, performing songs that advocated for social justice and equality. Their music was instrumental in inspiring and mobilizing individuals to join the fight against white supremacy.

Reagon employed the political power of song a few years later with the Harambee Singers, formed in 1966 by Reagon along with Mary Ethel Jones and Mattie Casey, which Reagon described as “a choral Black women collective voice calling for unity.” For Reagon, a song was more than simply words set to music; it was a space where everyday life could be transformed into another world, a world of freedom. Song offered a strategy for survival in this world, transgressing the bounds of the body to craft a new existence outside of the realities of racism and patriarchy. As she described in a 1971 article in the folk music magazine Sing Out!: “Something in me wants to get rid of my physical shell and be a song.”

Later that year, Reagon and activist Anne Romaine established the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, a radical interracial folk showcase that used music and song to challenge racial and class tensions in the South. This form of vocal protest was aimed at uniting Black and white people against white supremacy, and featured artists like white folk singer Hedy West, Black blues artist Reverend Pearly Brown, and Mable Hillery, a member of the Georgia Sea Island Singers. By highlighting African American folk traditions and asserting that they are as culturally significant as white folkways the festival encouraged a reevaluation of Southern tradition and history. Ultimately, the showcase fostered respect and community among individuals from different backgrounds.

Over the next couple of years Reagon made her home in Washington, D.C., and in 1969 she initiated her connection with the Smithsonian by creating a program for the 1970 Smithsonian Folklife Festival titled “Black Music Through the Languages of the New World.” In 1972 she collaborated with Gerald Davis, the festival's assistant director, and other specialists to launch the innovative African Diaspora program.

While living in D.C. Reagon created and participated in the renowned and groundbreaking a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey In The Rock. Founded in 1973, while Reagon was a graduate student at Howard University and working as the vocal director of the D.C. Black Repertory Company, the group used their powerful voices to address social issues, celebrate Black history, and promote justice and equality. Sonically, the group brought together a unique medley of gospel, blues, jazz, and spiritual music. Decked often in vibrant hues of orange, purple, and green, they melded the musical traditions of West Africa, the Mississippi Delta, and Baptist sanctuaries across the Bible Belt into vocal protest. Together their voices and words wove what Reagon called a “collective testimony” for freedom.

Sweet Honey In The Rock infused their songs with spirit, igniting a Black cultural renaissance at venues ranging from schools and community centers to Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. Reagon led and performed in the group for 30 years, retiring in 2004. The group still performs; their most recent album was released in 2016.

While performing with Sweet Honey In The Rock, Reagon earned her PhD from Howard University in 1975, becoming a central scholar in the burgeoning field of Black vernacular music study. Her dissertation focused on the songs of the Civil Rights Movement, documenting an important cultural history that had previously been neglected. This research laid the groundwork for Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, a double CD set released in 1980 and reissued in 1997 by Smithsonian Folkways. The collection includes 43 tracks featuring prominent figures like Fannie Lou Hamer, the SNCC Freedom Singers, Bernice Johnson Reagon, and Cordell Reagon. By incorporating field recordings from mass gatherings and protests, this project provides an accessible resource for audiences to understand the Civil Rights Movement through sound.

She joined the National Museum of American History in 1979 as the founding director of the Program in Black American Culture. Her work at the museum focused on the knowledge embedded within traditional Black cultural practices. These artforms, as diverse as gospel music, hair braiders, or jazz singers, provided beauty and aesthetic value but also were also significant locations of knowledge production, innovation, and creativity. Reagon's work at the Smithsonian showcased the contemporary relevance of traditional Black cultural practices.

While at the Smithsonian, Reagon produced two profound works: NPR’s Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music Traditions, a 26-part radio series and also a four-CD set of 19th- and 20th-century African American sacred music, and Africans in America: America’s Journey Through Slavery, the soundtrack which accompanied the PBS documentary of the same name. Through these groundbreaking albums Reagon worked to make songs and Black traditions accessible while highlighting the cultural makers who originated various lyrical legacies.

Reagon's life offers valuable lessons for us today, emphasizing a philosophy of coalition building based on deep empathy and respect, as well as a reverence for Black cultural practices, traditions, and music. Sadly, Reagon passed away on July 16, 2024, but her voice and songs continue to resonate and have a lasting impact on the next generation, each of which she believed had a freedom song: 

“The younger people may not sing “This little light of mine.” . . . They don’t have to sing what I sing but I have to tell them how I did what I did, and they can make some use of it. A freedom song is a freedom song. The only requirement within the African tradition is that it must express your need to change your situation.”

For further information on Bernice Johnson Reagon and her story, visit Reagon’s personal website and watch her 1986 Eyes on the Prize interview archived by the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. Additionally, the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History preserves the Bernice Johnson Reagon Collection of the African American Sacred Music Tradition, curated by Reagon, which provides insight into the interconnectivity of African American musical forms. Lastly, for an extensive exploration of Black women’s musical traditions, origins and legacy, Borders recommends Daphne A. Brooks’s Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound.

This post was originally published on the National Museum of American History's blog on October 3, 2024. Read the original version here.