Bernice Johnson Reagon (1942–2024), Founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock

By Eric San Juan 

July 18, 2024

Bernice Johnson Reagon was a singer, band leader, and social activist best known for performing with two influential singing ensembles: the 1960s protest group The Freedom Singers and the Grammy-nominated a cappella troupe Sweet Honey in the Rock. 

Singing can change lives. It can express our inner selves, comment on who we are and the world we live in, and bring disparate people together. That’s what Bernice Johnson Reagon believed. Raised in the segregated South, she went to college at age 16, studying music at Albany State in Georgia. But she didn’t just embrace music while at the school; she also embraced activism, becoming involved with the local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).  

While at Albany State, Reagon joined The Freedom Singers. Organized by the SNCC, they were a singing group that traveled and performed nationally, singing protest anthems that helped put the feelings of the era’s civil rights movement into compelling songcraft. Their best-known work is a memorable rendition of the traditional hymn, “We Shall Not Be Moved.” However, when Reagon was arrested for taking part in civil rights protests, she was expelled from school. 

Reagon later finished her undergrad studies at Spelman College and earned her PhD from Howard University, then went into academics. She became cultural historian in music history at the Smithsonian Institution in 1974, then curator of music history for the National Museum of American History. Around this time, she also formed Sweet Honey in the Rock, an all-woman, all-Black a cappella chorale that sings songs focused on African American history, spirituality, motherhood, and social issues. The group, which was based in Washington, D.C., has had a rotating slate of members over the years and was twice nominated for a Grammy Award. 

Reagon was presented with the Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Charles Frankel Prize, a Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, and the First National Leeway Laurel Award at the Leeway Foundation in Philadelphia, among the many honors given to her.