Topic: America University

Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon at APSU

By Debbie Boen | March 27, 2008 |

“Everybody gets several opportunities in life to risk everything they have to become what they can be.”

– Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon

Dr. Jill Eichhorn of Women’s Studies, APSU, told me that she didn’t know exactly what Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon would do for us, but guaranteed that whatever she brought to us would be “great.” Since Jill knows well my interest in civil liberties, and since CO author Terry McMoore had published a story about Dr. Reagon coming here on March 19, I knew I had to see this.

Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon is Professor Emeritus of History at American University. She recently retired after 30 years from performing with Sweet Honey in the Rock, a cappella ensemble she founded in 1973.

APSU President Tim Hall said he knew how music has the capacity to make us listen. It arrests and challenges us. Growing up in a family whose father led singing in the car after church, Hall couldn’t think about war without hearing the song in his head, Where have all the flowers gone by Peter, Paul, and Mary. When civil rights issues surface his mind visits the song, We shall overcome. So it was that he welcomed with utmost respect the civil rights leader, speaker, singer and composer, Bernice Johnson Reagon, to speak. «Read the rest of this article»

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