Known for her acapella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, writer, composer, educator, and civil rights activist Bernice Johnson Reagon, Ph.D. died at age 81 on July 16. Reagon’s daughter Thoshi Reagon posted the announcement on her Facebook page on July 17.
“I was here before I came, and when I die, I am not leaving,” Johnson Reagon once said.
Before starting the acapella group in 1973, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Reagon had an important role as an activist and founder of The Freedom Singers in 1962. The group started through the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), founded in 1960 at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Equal justice and voter education were issues for SNCC that resonated in Reagon’s music.
District residents Attorney Timothy Jenkins and his wife Lauretta Jenkins were involved in SNCC. Timothy was a co-founder of the organization, and Lauretta was a fundraiser and researcher. Lauretta shared her thoughts about Reagon.
“Bernice’s strong voice and presence will always be in my heart. She was magnificent and carried us through so much,” she told The Informer.
Reagon’s Impactful Contribution
Born in Albany, Georgia, Reagon studied music at Albany College (now Albany University) and Spelman College, where she received her undergraduate degree. Reagon received her Ph.D. from Howard University and was a professor emerita at American University.
In 2022, the multi-Grammy Award-winning group Sweet Honey kicked off a three-year 50th-anniversary tour with a concert at Strathmore Music Hall in Bethesda, Maryland. Carol Maillard, an original member of the group, recalled the beginnings of the group of ladies in song.
“When we started at the DC Black Repertory Theater at Georgia Avenue and Farragut St., NW, there was a music training where Bernice was our teacher – she gave us everything she knew,” said Maillard about Reagon.
In 2022, Reagon and her composer, singer and activist daughter Toshi premiered an opera based on Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower.” This production also took place at Strathmore. The mother-daughter collaborators composed the music and lyrics for the opera.
Arrangements for a public celebration of life are forthcoming.