Singer, activist and scholar Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon will be at ETSU for a free public presentation tonight, at 7 p.m. in the D.P. Culp University Center’s Martha Street Culp Auditorium.
Reagon offers a unique perspective on activism through her “Songtalk” presentations, in which she intertwines her knowledge of African- American culture and song with her own experiences as an activist, scholar, singer, composer.
“Honoring the congregational tradition in which I was raised, where all gatherings began in singing, I stretch the initial ‘Songtalk’ concept to name what I do when I come before an audience or congregation in a live solo presentation,” Reagon says on her web site, www.bjreagon.com. “I come as ‘speaker,’ orator, talker, storyteller, charging the air with the sound of singing, infusing my spoken word offerings with song and sung phrases as the spirit moves me.”
Reagon’s career, stretching more than four decades, began with her participation in the Civil Rights Movement in her native Albany, Ga. She worked full-time for the movement as a song leader and singer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Freedom Singers.
Reagon is professor emeritus of history at American University, curator emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., and former William and Camille Cosby Endowed Professor in the Fine Arts at Spelman College, Atlanta.
She has received major recognition for her pioneering work as a scholar, teacher and artist in the history and evolution of African-American culture, including the 1989 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2003 Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities, the 2000 Leeway National Award for Women in the Arts and the 1995 Presidential Medal for her contribution to public understanding of the humanities.
Reagon recently retired after 30 years of performing with Sweet Honey in the Rock, the internationally renowned a cappella ensemble she founded in 1973. She produced most of the group’s recordings, including the Grammy-nominated Still the Same Me (Rounder Records).
Her work as a scholar and composer is reflected in publications and productions on African-American culture and history, including If You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me: The African-American Sacred Song Tradition, a collection of essays; We’ll Understand It Better By and By: Pioneering African-American Gospel Composers. We Who Believe in Freedom: Sweet Honey in the Rock: Still on the Journey; and Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs a two-CD anthology with a booklet.
Reagon served as a music consultant, composer and performer for several acclaimed radio, film and video projects, including two that garnered the Peabody Award: the 1994 radio series, Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music Traditions, produced by National Public Radio and the Smithsonian Institution, and WGBH’s Africans in America, a 1998 film series for PBS.
Reagon’s appearance is co-sponsored by the Student Government Association BUC (Better University Community) Fund (formerly the 606 Fund), Volunteer ETSU, Women’s Resource Center and Honors College.
It is the signature event at ETSU for Campus Compact’s “Raise Your Voice: A Month of Action” (Feb. 19-March 25), an observance designed to increase, celebrate and deepen the student civic engagement efforts on college campuses around the country.
It is also part of a special series of public lectures and performances this spring at ETSU highlighting themes of diversity and involvement in the lives of others through civic engagement.
The series includes appearances by the Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous feminist activists (March 15); internationally renowned author, poet, historian and civil rights activist Dr. Maya Angelou (March 21); and noted educator Marva Collins (April 11).
For more information or for special assistance for those with disabilities, call Volunteer ETSU at 439-6633.

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