For over four decades Bernice Johnson Reagon has been a major cultural voice
for freedom and justice. An African American woman’s voice, a child of Southwest Georgia, a voice raised in song, born in the struggle against racism in America during the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s, she is a composer, songleader, scholar and producer.
Scholar and Teacher
Perhaps no individual today better illustrates the transformative power and instruction of traditional African American music and cultural history than Bernice Johnson Reagon, who has excelled equally in the realms of scholarship, composition, teaching and performance.
Dr. Reagon was the featured speaker at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Seattle, Washington for a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. The Seattle Times published a great review: “Freedom singer delivers civil-rights lessons in Seattle”.
Appreciation:
Bernice Johnson Reagon on Freedom Fighting
Bernice Johnson Reagon raised us in song. She helped assuage our pain and stress, like a balm of Gilead. As guest speaker of Berklee's 15th annual Liberal Arts Symposium, Sweet Honey in the Rock founder Reagon inspired a packed house at David Friend Recital Hall with partly sung memoirs and advice from her life as a freedom singer.…
Reagon began her keynote by singing a soft spiritual, and told us, “I was born among singing. I don’t know of breathing or eating, without singing. I don’t mean from the radio (a wonderful invention) or from the iPod (another wonderful invention). I mean [singing] like walking and talking, like the air you breathe, so you didn’t define it in any particular way, because it was woven inside the you you came to know, the house you grew up in, the yard you played in, the school you went to, the church you went to. It was singing by the people around you.” …
Read the full article by Fred Brouchard, associate professor in the Liberal Arts Department, Berklee College of Music
Upcoming Appearances | Past Appearances
- February
Wed: 3 - Gettysburg College, Gettysburg PA
Selections from the Autobiography of a Freedom Singer
Black History Month Celebration - Thur: 11
- Community College of Baltimore County, MD
Songs and Singing at the Center of the African American Struggle for Freedom - Thur: 18
- Berklee School of Music, Boston, MA
Roots and Reason Series
Special Collaborative Performance: Bernice Johnson Reagon and Toshi Reagon - Fri-Sat: 19-20
- Rutgers University at Newark
Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series, two day conference featuring previous Wright Lecturers
Conference Theme: Laboring in the Vineyard: Scholarship and Citizenship - Tues: 23
- University of PA, Philadelphia, PA
Women Studies: Women in the Civil Rights Movement - March
Sat: 13 @ 3:00 p.m. presentation - WomenSpeak Conference Redbird Foundation, Mobile, Alabama
- Sat: 20 @ 7:30 p.m.
- NJPAC Victoria Theater
Special Collaborative Performance: Bernice Johnson Reagon and Toshi Reagon - Thu: 24 @ 7:00 p.m.
- American Baptist Seminary
African American Traditional Sacred Song and Singing: Application for the 21st Century - Fri: 26
- University of North Carolina, Ashville, NC
Bernice Johnson Reagon Keynote Presentation - April
Fri: 9 @ 7:00 p.m. - Amnesty International Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA
Opening Plenary Session: Human Rights: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Panel: Bernice Johnson Reagon, Howard Zinn, Gloria Steinem - Thur-Sun: 15-18
- SNCC 50th Reunion
Shaw University, Raleigh, NC
For more information contact Jodi Solomon at the Jodi Solomon Speakers Bureau.
Songtalk Publishing Organized 1978
Management of the Music and Works of Bernice Johnson Reagon
Music licensing: contact Kathy Ostien
Booking: Jodi F. Solomon Speakers Bureau
Music Commissions and other information: e-mail or write to: Songtalk Publishing, PO Box 56482, Washington, DC 20040-6482