Sunday Sessions: Together

We’ve Come A Long Way To Be Together could be a phrase and an idea describing people finding common ground across beliefs and backgrounds.

We’ve Come A Long Way To Be Together is also the name of a song, a song Bernice Johnson Reagon recorded on her album called Give Your Hands to the Struggle

Reagon recorded that album back in 1975 -- it was released on CD by Folkways in 1997.

Reagon was born and grew up in Albany, in southwest Georgia. A preacher’s daughter, she grew up with music. She began to find the power of her voice.

As an African American born in the early 1940s, she knew racism and discrimination, too. She found ways to use her voice in the struggle for justice and civil rights .

An activist who was jailed for her actions, during the civil rigths years she founded the Freedom Singers, who often sang old spirituals, sometimes reworded by Reagon to address civil rights issues.

Reagon continued both her activism and her music, and the connections she made between them, too.

She continued her education as well, earning a doctorate in history from Howard University, and holding appointments as cultural historian at the Smithsonian and professor of history at American University. She wrote books and produced films too.

Along the way, she founded and worked for many years with the a capella singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock. With a powerful on stage presence, a deep ability to connect with audiences, and a repertoire ranging from spirituals to songs for children, Sweet Honey has recorded several Grammy nominated albums. They continue to tour and record.

Doctor Bernice Johnson Reagon passed away in the summer of 2024 at the age of 81.

Her legacy as a musician and a scholar continues.

You may also wish to see

Remembering Freedom Summer in books, music and conversation, at Perceptive Travel -- conversation which includes perspectives from musician Caroyn Hester, who was a freedom rider

Reflections on the civil rights era and other aspects of the American south in song from musician Caroline Herring

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