Top 27 Quotes by Bernice Johnson Reagon

I started graduate school in 1971, I started working at the Smithsonian in the festival in 1972. I went full-time at the Smithsonian in 1974. And I got my doctorate in 1975.

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.

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.

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.

When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.

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.

And I used to think that proof that I had religion was whether I knew how to sing all of the songs.