We honor Bernice Johnson Reagon, civil rights activist who co-founded The Freedom Singers and later started Sweet Honey in the Rock, the African American vocal ensemble. Reagon’s voice led liberation struggles through song. Her activism and scholarship permeating throughout communities from marches to prisons. Reagon became a leading scholar of Black musical life, receiving a music history appointment at the Smithsonian; a Ph.D. from Howard University; and winning a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. She was awarded the Presidential Medal and the Charles Frankel Prize and her 1994, documentary entitled Wade in the Water won a Peabody award. A guide to African American sacred music, Wade in the Water celebrated the ways in which both worship and liberation are sacred.
Bernice Johnson Reagon
