Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Music Historian 

“Notes from the Cultural Autobiography of a Freedom Singer”

Thursday, April 17
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon is professor emeritus of history at American University. The recipient of the 2003 Heinz Award for the Arts and Humanities (Heinz Family Foundation) for her work as a scholar and artist in African American cultural history and music, Reagon serves as curator emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington D.C., and was formerly the Cosby Chair Professor of Fine Arts at Spelman College in Atlanta GA.  

A singer and composer, Reagon recently retired after 30 years from performing with Sweet Honey In The Rock, the internationally renowned a cappella ensemble she founded in 1973. She produced most of the group’s recordings including the Grammy nominated Still The Same Me (Rounder Records release for younger audiences, 2001). Her work as a scholar and composer is reflected in publications and productions on African American culture and history, including a collection of essays entitled If You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song Tradition, (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2001); We’ll Understand It Better By and By: Pioneering African-American Gospel Composers (Smithsonian Press, 1992); We Who Believe in Freedom: Sweet Honey In The Rock: Still On the Journey (Anchor Books, 1993), and Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, Black American Freedom Songs (Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, 1980, 1994) a 2-CD anthology with booklet.  

Reagon has served as music consultant, composer and performer for several radio, film and video projects, including the path breaking Peabody Award-winning 1994 radio series Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music Traditions (produced by National Public Radio and the Smithsonian Institution); composer, compiler and performer in the creation of the sound scores for WGBH’s Peabody Award-winning Africans in America film series for PBS (1998); and Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore, (The Documentary Institute at the University of Florida and WUFT-TV, 2001). In 2003 Reagon composed the music and libretto for Temptations of St Anthony, a Robert Wilson musical production that premiered in Germany June 2003, and was performed at the Warsaw Opera House in 2006.  

She also produced and directed Evening Song a special cross-genre (a capella and rock) production in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Sweet Honey In The Rock, in collaboration with Toshi Reagon and her rock band, Big Lovely. The production which premiered at the University of Michigan in 2003 was presented in 13 cities during the ensemble’s 2003/4 30th anniversary tour. BEAH: A Black Woman Speaks, a film produced by LisaGay Hamilton and Jonathan Demme, for which Reagon was co-creator of the score with Toshi Reagon and Geri Allen, aired as the HBO 2004 Black History Month Film. Her most recent work, “Liberty or Death” commissioned by the Muse Women Choir of Cincinnati in observance of the opening of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, had its premier performance June 2004.

Lyceum Series
Fall 2007 - Spring 2008 Calendar

Click on speaker's name for more information.

Fall 2007

Thursday, September 6 — Byron Pitts, CBS Reporter
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, September 26 — Harriet Washington, Editor
and Medical Ethicist
“Medical Apartheid”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Thursday, October 4 — Dr. Na’im Akbar, Psychologist
“What Will Our Legacy Be?”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, October 24 — Beatrice Thompson, News Anchor and Talk Show Host
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Thursday, November 1 — Lyceum Program in Collaboration with the JCSU Violence
Prevention Coalition
Tony Porter, Educator and Activist
“A Call To Men”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, November 14 — Dr. Brian Johnson, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
“W.E.B. Du Bois, Becoming Agnostic”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

SPRING 2008

Thursday, January 24 — Co-Sponsored by the Lyceum
Program and the African and African-American Studies Program
“A Woman, Ain’t I?”
Sojourner Truth as recreated by Kathryn Woods
Dramatic Performance
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, February 6 — Faculty Showcase Event
Dr. Gregory Thompson
Chair, Department of Music Johnson C. Smith University
Piano and Woodwind Quintet Recital
The Jane M. Smith Memorial Church
7:30 p.m.

Friday, February 15 — Dr. Maha Gingrich's Indian
Dance Students
“Dances of India”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 18 — Lyceum Program in Collaboration
with THE JCSU Violence Prevention Coalition
Kevin Powell, Political Activist
“Sexism From a Male Perspecitve”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 25 — Thirteenth Annual World of
Words Poetry Festival
Dr. Patrica Jabbeh Wesley, Poet
Lionel H. Newsom Humanities Building, Room 108
Writing Workshop
4:00 p.m.

Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
Public Reading
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 26 — ANNOUNCEMENT

Due to circumstances beyond our control, these Lyceum Poetry Festival events will be changed. 
Tyehimba Jess is not able to perform at this time.

Thursday, March 27 — Metta S. Sáma, Poet
(Formerly Lydia Melvin)
Lionel H. Newsom Humanities Building, Room 108
Writing Workshop
4:00 p.m.

Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
Public Reading
7:30 p.m.

Friday, March 28 — Thirteenth World of Words
Poetry Festival
Black Ink Monks Performance Poetry
Public Reading
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Thursday and Friday, April 10 and 11 — JCSU Ira B. Aldridge
Drama Guild Performance
The Day of Absence by Douglas Turner Ward
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 17 — Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon,
Music Historian
“Notes from the Cultural Autobiography of a Freedom Singer”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.