In Memoriam: Bernice Johnson Reagon

August 7, 2024

Known for her music and activism, and a speaker at the 3rd Annual and 11th Annual Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine Dr. William G. Anderson Slavery to Freedom Lecture Series. Bernice Johnson Reagon, 81 passed away on July 16. She will be remembered.

Johnson Reagon was a music leader and composer, a scholar and a social activist who was a founding member of the Freedom Singers, which was organized by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee in the Albany Movement in Georgia. She also founded the all-Black female a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973 in Washington, D.C.

She earned a Ph.D. from Howard University and was a professor emerita in the Department of History at the American University.

Johnson Reagon was the first speaker in 2003 and the first speaker in 2011 in the college’s annual Slavery to Freedom Lecture Series.