Remembering Freedom Singer Bernice Johnson Reagon

Fresh Air

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4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

We go into the Fresh Air archive to remember two remarkable women: Bernice Johnson Reagon was one of the powerful singers who helped galvanize the civil rights movement in the 1960s, as a member of the Freedom Singers quartet. She died July 16 at the age of 81. Also, we remember writer Gail Lumet Buckley, the daughter of singer Lena Horne, who chronicled her family's history from enslavement to becoming a part of the Black bourgeoisie. She died this week at age 86.

August 2nd is the 100th anniversary of the birth of James Baldwin, so we listen back to Terry Gross's 1986 interview with him.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dignity Memorial.
0:04.6	When your celebration of life is prepaid today, your family is protected tomorrow.
0:09.6	Planning ahead is truly one of the best gifts you can give your family.
0:13.4	For additional information visit dignity memorial.com.
0:17.1	This is fresh air. I'm David Beekin Cooley.
0:19.6	Hang gonna let nobody load it.
0:22.6	Turn me round,
0:24.6	turn me round, turn me round,
0:26.5	turn me round, ain't gonna let nobody load it.
0:30.3	Turn me round, I'm gonna keep on a's a vocal, a keep on a talking,
0:35.0	marching up for freedom.
0:38.0	That's the freedom singers, a vocal quartet that grew out of the civil rights movement and provided inspiration for
0:44.6	fellow protesters as they faced police, arrest, or jail.
0:49.0	We're going to remember Bernice Johnson Reagan, a founding member of the group. She died last month at the age of 81.
0:57.0	The Freedom Singers was affiliated with Snick, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Reagan's experience in jail formed a powerful
1:05.3	connection for her between political protest and song. Bernice Johnson Reagan
1:11.5	went on to become a leading scholar of protest songs.
1:15.1	She directed the Black American Culture Program at the Smithsonian Institution, where she produced
1:19.9	a record series called Voices from the Civil Rights Movement. In 1973, she founded the
1:25.9	Women's Acapella Group Sweet Honey in the Rock. Later, she produced and hosted the Peabody
1:31.8	Award winning NPR series,
1:33.9	weighed in the water, African American Sacred Music Traditions.
	...

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