Bernice Johnson Reagon
American singer, composer, and activist (1942-2024) · United States · On the map · Musicians · Died at 81
Bernice Johnson Reagon was an American song leader, composer, professor of American history, curator at the Smithsonian, and social activist.
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In the early 1960s, she was a founding member of the Freedom Singers, organized by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the Albany Movement for civil rights in Georgia. In 1973, she founded the all-black female a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, based in Washington, D.C. She was the founder/the 1st member of Sweet Honey in the Rock from 1973 to 2006. Reagon, along with other members of the SNCC Freedom Singers, realized the power of collective singing to unify the disparate groups who began to work together in the 1964 Freedom Summer protests in the South."After a song", Reagon recalled, "the differences between us were not so great. Somehow, making a song required an expression of that which was common to us all.... This music was like an instrument, like holding a tool in your hand."
