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" Personally I discovered that you could go through the academy as a young scholar, come out, and almost immediately have an impact on the academic environment. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Out
Young
You
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" Most people come out of their Ph.D. experience trying to prove themselves, trying to get ahead, trying to get published. You're scared everybody else is going to do your research and get your topic. "
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" So one of the things that happened with integration in the South is they found that the black teachers were much more educated than the white teachers. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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" If every moment is sacred, and If you are amazed and in awe most of the time when you find yourself breathing and not crazy, then you are in a state of constant thankfulness, worship and humility. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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" Well, the first time I ran into the term religion, people were asking whether you had any. You know, some people had religion and some people didn't have religion. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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Time
" I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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" 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
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" I organized Sweet Honey In The Rock in 1973. The music was sanity and balance. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
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" 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
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" I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Me
School
Rights
" The Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, actually, was an effort to put something on the mall in Washington so American tourists could walk through America, and in their minds everything on the mall would be American. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Effort
Walk
America
" 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
Training
Experience
Focus
" The first job I had with the Smithsonian was as a field researcher among African American communities in Southwest Louisiana and Arkansas for the festival. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Job
American
Louisiana
" 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
Research
Producer
Just
" The voice I have now, I got the first time I sang in a movement meeting, after I got out of jail... and I'd never heard it before in my life. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Now
My Life
Voice
" 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
Plan
My Life
Me
" I just don't think one person has that much to contribute to any subject. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Just
Any
Subject
" When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Rights
School
Civil
" One of the biggest things I understood in a program like that was that it allowed more young African American scholars to do field research in the Caribbean and in Africa than had ever happened before in the history of the country and since. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Research
History
American
" In fact when Sweet Honey was ten years old it was too big for me to run, and I knew it, but I ran it for another thirteen years because I couldn't convince other people to really do it. And this year, I'm not running it. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Year
Sweet
Me
" When the culture is strong, you've got this consistency where black people can grow up in these places with this voice just resonating about our special-ness in the universe. And I always say you're in trouble if you get too far away from that core that grounds you. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Consistency
Culture
People
" It makes sense that whatever the topic is, it's more compelling if you can provide the audience with a range of perspectives, and you can cross disciplines. And you don't have to control what people take out of it. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
People
More
You
" 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
Day
People
Song
" If I had been at a University I don't think I would have been able to have the experience I had in my Smithsonian work. I don't think I have been as successful. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Successful
Work
Think
" Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are. "
Bernice Johnson Reagon
You
Life
Help