Bernice Johnson Reagon

She is the founder of the a capella group "Sweet Honey in the Rock". A native of Georgia, Reagon attended Albany State University, but later transferred to Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia from which she graduated in 1970. While a student, she was an active member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). During her participation in SNCC, she and three other vocalists founded the music group known as the "Freedom Singers" who regularly sang at rallies and protests during the 1960s. Reagon later earned a Doctorate in History from Howard University in Washington, D.C. and served as curator of the Program in African American Culture at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. In 1991 Reagon was featured with PBS Commentator Bill Moyers in a Public Affairs Television documentary entitled "The Songs are Free", a study of the origins and evolution of African-American "Freedom songs", from slave spirituals to present-day musical genres. She continues to lecture, record, and travel extensively with "Sweet Honey in the Rock", a group whose lyrics and music continues to be punctuated by social and political commentary--commentary that has earned them a large national and international following.