Sweet Honey in the Rocks' Bernice Johnson Reagon to Speak at University of Richmond

September 15, 2003

Bernice Johnson Reagon, a singer, composer, cultural historian, curator and activist, will speak on taking action to create a just society Oct. 2 at the University of Richmond.

Reagon is the second speaker in the 2003-04 WILL/Women's Studies Speaker Series, which is focusing on ethics in a changing world. She will speak at 7:30 p.m. in Cannon Memorial Chapel on "Holding Hands with Truth and Integrity: Selected Voices Standing in the Face of the Storm." The event is free and open to the public.

A leading civil rights activist and scholar of African-American culture, Reagon is distinguished professor emerita at American University and curator emerita at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. She is a well-known performer with Sweet Honey in the Rock, a singing group she formed in 1973. Public television has featured her solo work in several award-winning documentaries, and she produced and hosted an NPR/Smithsonian collaboration that received the 1994 Peabody Award for significant and meritorious achievement in broadcasting.

In 1989 Reagon received a MacArthur Fellowship, also called the genius grant, for her work as an artist and scholar of African-American culture. She also has received a Presidential Medal, Charles E. Frankel Prize and Isadora Duncan Award. Her appearance is sponsored by Women Involved in Living and Learning (WILL) and the Women's Studies program at the university. For more information, call (804) 289-8578.