Bernice Johnson Reagon

“If you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you're not doing your work.”

“Freedom songs are the soul of the movement.”

“Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.”

“In the black tradition, song is not an art form, but a life form.”

“Song is the most powerful way to tell a story.”

“You don't have to be a singer to sing.”

“The songs are the chronicles of the movement.”

“In congregational singing, you're not a soloist. You're a part of a community.”

“African American culture is a culture of resistance, and it's a culture of spiritual power.”

“When we sing, we announce our existence.”

“You cannot have a movement without songs.”

“There is no sound like the sound of the human voice.”

“The power of the song is that it is a communal statement.”

“There is nowhere you can go and not be a part of the struggle.”

“Coalition work is not done in your home. Coalition work is done in the streets.”

“I learned that if you bring black people together, you bring ghosts.”

“We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.”

“There are songs that have the capacity to keep you from falling.”

“My work as a cultural worker is to find the stories, to tell them, and to celebrate them.”

“The work of the scholar is to make the invisible visible.”