Bernice Johnson Reagon (1942-2024)

Quentin Crisp wrote: “An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing” (Crisp [1968] 1997:189). Bernice Johnson Reagon, who entered her earthly journey on October 4, 1942, and transitioned to Ancestor-Spirit on July 16, 2024, makes manifest her own existential trajectory, voicing her coming into and remaining in this world. This meta-perspective on her next “installment” is not finality; it is an ongoing presence, as her daughter Toshi Reagon remembers: “I was here before I came, and when I die, I am not leaving” (Bernice Johnson Reagon in Toshi Reagon 2024). In keeping with the Journal of American Folklore's open-ended obituary guidelines and disciplinary folk knowledge perspective, this “her-self obituary,” as well as the published essay about her contributions to the field, center Reagon and honor her vision of enduring presence (Early and Horowitz 2023).Reagon lived her life deeply within and beyond the communities that formed her. She was born the third child of a county-wide preacher Reverend Jessie Johnson and spiritual singer/domestic worker Beatrice Wise Johnson in Dougherty County, Georgia, in the Black Belt South of the United States. Amid the enforced legal racial segregation and economic exploitation; the color, class, and gender discrimination; and the deadly consequences of White supremacist violence, she raised her voice with and, above all, for voices that she called to song to hear, see, organize, and create the “New World Coming.”You know the book, the Bible?You read it and you'll seeIt will surely come to passThis is how it's gonna beThose that were meek and humbleWould come to gain the earthThem that shudder at the bottomWould rise and rule the world!There's a new world comingWhere you gon’ be standing when it comes?(Reagon [1975] 1997a)Civil Rights song leader and justice movement organizer, singer-composer, folklore researcher, scholar, Smithsonian Folklife Festival curator and producer, Roadwork co-founder, historian, musicologist, university professor, mother, sister, daughter, life partner, known and loved across the United States and around the world, Bernice Johnson Reagon has transitioned into a state of ongoing life that she described as “being here” before her birth and “not leaving” after her last breath.The diverse peoples and communities around the world that Bernice Johnson Reagon intersected with have read and listened to her many and varied obituaries, most of which follow a traditional structure of chronicling her life in expansive detail—at least “life” as most think about it, as the time between being born and dying on this earth.3 See links to a handful of the obituary outpourings after the references cited below. Undoubtedly, thousands continue to replay and sing her music and read and quote her writings both as conduits to past memories and as inspiration for their ongoing lives. In this regard, she is present. And how she will reveal her presence to coming generations are futures to unfold.4Reagon's unique voice is in communication with a cohort of ancestral antecedents, a subject matter reflected in the work of Senegalese poet and storyteller Birago Diop, whose poem “Les Souffles” was reinterpreted into the song “Breaths” performed by Sweet Honey In The Rock, the Black women's a cappella group founded by Reagon.”5 Reagon's self-reference as a medium signals to the endurance of the ancestral voice: Those who have died have never, never leftThe dead have a pact with the livingThey are in the woman's breastThey are in the wailing childThey are with us in our homesThey are with us in this crowdThe dead have a pact with the livingListen more often to things than to beingsListen more often to things than to beings’Tis the ancestors’ breathWhen the fire's voice is heard’Tis the ancestors’ breathIn the voice of the waters.Reagon lays out her intervening agency between enduring ancestral ties and her eternal presence among us, as she communicates: My history was wrapped carefully for me by my fore-parents in the songs of the church, the work fields, and the blues. Ever since this discovery, I've been trying to find myself, using the first music I've ever known as a basic foundation for my search for truth. (Reagon 1965)And in her song “If You had Lived,” she asks us to do more than hear, but to hear her ideological and political forebears summoning us.If you had lived with Denmark Veseywould you take his stand . . . If you had lived with Harriet Tubmanwould you wade in the water . . . If you had lived with Sacco & Vanzettiwould you know their names . . . Do you hear them calling?Are you living today?Are you fighting today?Do you know our names?Do you know our names?Do you hear our cries?(Reagon 1981a)Reagon leaves behind an inviting chamber of songs, sermons, and texts—what she came to refer to as “songtalk,” a theatrical genre she created while serving as music director at the DC Black Repertory Company.6 Her song compositions and writings are instruction manuals for movement-building activist engagements. She sings “We will not bow down to exploitation” and asks “Watcha gon’ do?” And we answer, “I'm gon’ stand” (Reagon 1983a).Reagon's physical presence and resounding voice among us directs us to find “a way outta no way” (Reagon 1981b). She remains a solidarity-love call, “If you feel my heart break, don't just count the sound waves. Hold me close now, baby. Give your hands to struggle” (Reagon [1975] 1997b), an embodiment of “we all, everyone of us” (Reagon 1983b). She continues to guide our collective care beyond self-interests: “Now I ain't talking about my particular cause, racism, sexism, class, they all need to fall, if we gon’ live to struggle another day, we better wake up to this common cause we face. B'lieve I'll run on . . . See what the ends gon’ be” (Reagon 1978).This “run on” spirit centers a reading of her-self obituary.Those who still breathe this earthly air can communicate with ancestor Bernice Johnson Reagon. Her life partner, Adisa Douglas, her children, grandchildren, siblings, artistic collaborators, colleagues, and extended family, authors included, are not like pallbearers who head toward a final resting place; rather, we are bearers of her ongoing songs

Art · Diverse Musicological Studies · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis

• Bernice Johnson Reagon (1942-2024)

  Amy Horowitz, James Counts Early et al.•Journal of American Folklore•2025

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• Africans in America

  Herbert Aptheker•Journal of American History•1999

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• Bernice Johnson Reagon (1942-2024)

  Amy Horowitz, James Counts Early et al.•Journal of American Folklore•2025

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• Bernice Johnson Reagon-In Celebration of Her Eightieth Birthday (October 4, 1942)

  James Counts Early, James Early et al.•Journal of American Folklore•2023

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