25th Anniversary Celebration

Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon

For more than 40 years Bernice Johnson Reagon has been a major cultural voice for freedom and justice; singing, teaching–speaking out against racism and organized inequities of all kinds. An African American woman’s voice, a child of Southwest Georgia, a voice raised in song, born in the struggle against racism in America during the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s, Reagon’s life and work supports the concept of community based culture with an enlarged capacity for mutual respect: for self, for those who move among us who seem to be different than us, respect and care for our home, the environment including the planet that sustains life as we know it.

Perhaps no individual today better illustrates the transformative power and instruction of traditional African American music and cultural history than Bernice Johnson Reagon, who has excelled equally in the realms of scholarship, composition, and performance. A singer of extraordinary emotional depth and vocal power, Reagon became active in the Civil Rights Movement while a college student at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia (from which was expelled after participating in a demonstration for which she and others participating were jailed). She was a member of the original SNCC (Student Non–Violent Coordinating Committee) Freedom Singers formed in 1962 by SNCC field secretary Cordell H. Reagon, and in 1966, a founding member of the Atlanta–based Harambee Singers. Early in 2004 Reagon retired after thirty years from the acclaimed African American women’s a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey In The Rock, which she founded in 1973. To learn more about Bernice Johnson Reagon and her work go to www.BJReagon.com

Toshi Reagon

Toshi Reagon is a singer/songwriter/producer and activist living in Brooklyn, New York. For the past year she has traveled nationally and internationally celebrating the release of her latest collection of music "Have You Heard" on Righteous Babe Records. Toshi can take any style, update it, and make it her own with incredible ease. Despite (or because of) her genre–bending, Toshi fits comfortably on a stage at Carnegie Hall, or in a small rock club. Toshi is an artist who’s known for energetic performances and a exemplary gift for writing engaging songs that provoke listeners to think and have fun at the same time. She tours as a solo performer and with her band BIGLovely. Either way most people would just tell you that to truly understand how Toshi can seamlessly transcend all of these genres, you have to check her out live. She has earned countless rave reviews in the years that she has been performing. The New Yorker said "...her live shows shower retro funk, urban blues, and folk on the audience with evangelical fervor. To hear her is to believe."

Toshi Reagon and her mother Bernice Johnson Reagon have collaborated on many projects together including creating the musical score for the award winning films Africans In America on PBS and BEAH: A Black Woman Speaks for HBO. Their performances together are rare but always a welcomed opportunity. To learn more about Toshi and her work go to www.toshireagon.com and www.righteousbabe.com