Connect with us

Lifestyle

Bernice Johnson Reagon, a founder of The Freedom Singers and Sweet Honey in the Rock, has died

Published

on

Bernice Johnson Reagon, a founder of The Freedom Singers and Sweet Honey in the Rock, has died

Bernice Johnson Reagon, seen here at the memorial celebration for Odetta at Riverside Church in 2009 in New York City.

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

Advertisement

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images

Bernice Johnson Reagon at the memorial celebration for Odetta at Riverside Church in 2009 in New York City.

Bernice Johnson Reagon, seen here at the memorial celebration for Odetta at Riverside Church in 2009 in New York City.

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images

Bernice Johnson Reagon, a civil rights activist who co-founded The Freedom Singers and later started the African-American a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, has died at the age of 81.

Reagon’s death was confirmed Wednesday night by Courtland Cox, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s Legacy Project.

Advertisement

It is impossible to separate liberation struggles from song. And in the 1960s — at marches, and in jailhouses — the voice leading those songs was often Bernice Johnson Reagon. Her work as a scholar and activist continued throughout her life, in universities and concert halls, at protests and in houses of worship.

The future songleader was born in southwest Georgia, the daughter of a Baptist minister. She was admitted to a historically Black public college, Albany State, at the age of 16 and studied music. Albany, Ga., would become an important center of the civil rights movement when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested there in 1962, causing the media to descend on the town.


Dr Bernice Johnson Reagon Will The Circle Be Unbroken
YouTube

Reagon, however, wasn’t there to see it. “I was already in jail, so I missed most of that,” she wryly remembered on WHYY’s Fresh Air in 1988. “But what they began to write about… no matter what the article said, they talked about singing.”

Advertisement

The singing that so fascinated the media were freedom songs — often revamped versions of spirituals familiar to anyone who’d grown up in African-American churches. Reagon would later say that in many cases, she simply replaced the word “Jesus” with “freedom,” as in the rousing “Woke Up This Morning.”

After Albany State kicked her out due to her arrest, the rising civil rights organizer co-founded The Freedom Singers, an a cappella group that was part of the SNCC. Through music, the Freedom Singers chronicled SNCC’s activities, including a movement leader’s funeral (“They Laid Medgar Evers In His Grave”) and a visit from a Kenyan dignitary brought in by the State Department to demonstrate America’s strides towards racial integration (“Oginga Odinga”).

Such intertwining of songs and resistance helped define the era and those who fought for equality, says civil rights professor Kevin Gaines.

“When they were being arrested and loaded into the paddywagons, when they were in jail, when they were having mass meetings in African-American churches to organize the next protest, civil rights activists sang in all of those settings,” says Gaines.

Reagon remembered, on Fresh Air, that being the good kind of troublemaker was not necessarily encouraged.

Advertisement

“If you grow up in a black family, the best badge you can have is that you never got into trouble with the law,” she said. But she drew a parallel between the struggle for civil rights and biblical stories like those of Paul and Silas, who were jailed for their ministry.

“When you’re in the civil rights movement, that’s the first time you establish yourself in a relationship that’s pretty close to the same relationship that used to get the Christians thrown in the lion’s den,” she said. “And so, for the first time, those old songs you understand in a way that nobody could ever teach you.”

In 1963, Bernice Johnson married Freedom Singers co-founder Cordell Reagon. They had two children, Kwan Tauna and Toshi, who would go on to become a musical star in her own right. After her 1967 divorce, Reagon returned to school, received a Ford Foundation Fellowship, and founded the women’s a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Advertisement


Sweet Honey in the Rock Performs “Stranger” at NPR
YouTube

Her activism grew to encompass the anti-apartheid movement. She became a leading scholar of Black musical life. In 1974, she received a music history appointment at the Smithsonian; in 1989 she won a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. In 1994, she created a 26 part NPR documentary called Wade in the Water that won a Peabody award. And in 1995, she was awarded the Presidential Medal and the Charles E. Frankel Prize.

Wade in the Water was a listener’s guide to African American sacred music — one that celebrated the ways in which both worship and liberation are sacred.

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Lifestyle

Joe Jonas Says New Album Was Personal Therapy Nearly Year After Divorce

Published

on

Joe Jonas Says New Album Was Personal Therapy Nearly Year After Divorce

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Lifestyle

Here are the 2024 Emmy nominations

Published

on

Here are the 2024 Emmy nominations


76th EMMY® AWARDS NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCEMENT
YouTube

The Television Academy announced nominations for the 2024 Primetime Emmy Awards on Wednesday. Shogun leads nominations with 25 on the drama side, while The Bear brought in a comedy category record of 23.

Winners will be announced at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on September 15.

Outstanding comedy series

Advertisement

Abbott Elementary
The Bear
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Hacks
Only Murders in the Building
Palm Royale 
Reservation Dogs
What We Do in the Shadows

Outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series

Lionel Boyce, The Bear
Paul W. Downs, Hacks
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear
Paul Rudd, Only Murders in the Building
Tyler James Williams, Abbott Elementary
Bowen Yang, Saturday Night Live

Outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series

Advertisement

Carol Burnett, Palm Royale
Sheryl Lee Ralph, Abbott Elementary
Hannah Einbinder, Hacks
Janelle James, Abbott Elementary
Liza Colon-Zayas, The Bear
Meryl Streep, Only Murders in the Building

Outstanding lead actress in a comedy series

Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary
Ayo Edebiri, The Bear
Selena Gomez, Only Murders in the Building
Maya Rudolph, Loot
Jean Smart, Hacks
Kristen Wiig, Palm Royale

Outstanding lead actor in a comedy series

Matt Berry, What We Do in the Shadows
Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building
Steve Martin, Only Murders in the Building
Jeremy Allen White, The Bear
D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Reservation Dogs

Advertisement

Outstanding drama series

The Crown
Fallout
The Gilded Age
The Morning Show
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Shogun
Slow Horses
3 Body Problem

Outstanding lead actor in a drama series

Idris Elba, Hijack 
Donald Glover, Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Walton Goggins, Fallout
Gary Oldman, Slow Horses
Hiroyuki Sanada, Shogun
Dominic West, The Crown

Outstanding lead actress in a drama series

Advertisement

Jennifer Aniston, The Morning Show
Maya Erskine, Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Carrie Coon, The Gilded Age
Anna Sawai, Shogun
Imelda Staunton, The Crown
Reese Witherspoon, The Morning Show

Outstanding supporting actor in a drama series

Billy Crudup, The Morning Show
Tadanobu Asano, Shogun
Mark Duplass, The Morning Show
Jon Hamm, The Morning Show
Takehiro Hira, Shogun
Jack Lowden, Slow Horses
Jonathan Pryce, The Crown

Outstanding supporting actress in a drama series

Christine Baranski, The Gilded Age
Nicole Beharie, The Morning Show
Elizabeth Debicki, The Crown
Greta Lee, The Morning Show
Lesley Manville, The Crown
Karen Pittman, The Morning Show
Holland Taylor, The Morning Show

Advertisement

Outstanding limited or anthology series

Baby Reindeer
Fargo
Lessons in Chemistry
Ripley
True Detective: Night Country

Outstanding lead actress in a limited or anthology series or movie

Jodie Foster, True Detective: Night Country
Brie Larson, Lessons in Chemistry
Juno Temple, Fargo
Sofia Vergara, Griselda
Naomi Watts, Feud: Capote vs. the Swans

Outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie

Advertisement

Matt Bomer, Fellow Travelers
Richard Gadd, Baby Reindeer
Jon Hamm, Fargo
Tom Hollander, Feud: Capote vs. the Swans
Andrew Scott, Ripley

Outstanding supporting actress in a limited or anthology series or movie

Dakota Fanning, Ripley
Lily Gladstone, Under the Bridge
Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer
Aja Naomi King, Lessons in Chemistry
Diane Lane, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans 
Nava Mau, Baby Reindeer
Kali Reis, True Detective: Night Country

Outstanding supporting actor in a limited or anthology series or movie

Jonathan Bailey, Fellow Travelers
Robert Downey Jr., The Sympathizer
Tom Goodman-Hill, Baby Reindeer
John Hawkes, True Detective: Night Country
Lamorne Morris, Fargo
Lewis Pullman, Lessons in Chemistry
Treat Williams, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans

Advertisement

Outstanding reality competition program

The Amazing Race
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Top Chef
The Traitors
The Voice

Outstanding talk series

The Daily Show
Jimmy Kimmel Live
Late Night with Seth Meyers
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

You can see the full list of nominees here.

Advertisement

Amazon supports NPR and pays to distribute some of our content.

Continue Reading

Lifestyle

In a hot L.A. neighborhood full of brown lawns, his DIY native plant garden thrives

Published

on

In a hot L.A. neighborhood full of brown lawns, his DIY native plant garden thrives

Water-hungry lawns are symbols of Los Angeles’ past. In this series, we spotlight yards with alternative, low-water landscaping built for the future.

The temperature was in the 90s in West Hills, but that didn’t deter an astonishing number of monarch butterflies, hummingbirds and bees from feeding on the California-friendly plants — sages, salvias and flowering milkweed — in Eric Augusztiny’s front yard.

Pollinators, however, aren’t the only ones who call the front yard home. “This is our buddy, Lizzy,” Augusztiny said with a smile as he and his wife, Lise Ransdell, greeted an enormous lizard who crawled out from under a large salvia ‘Desperado’ plant.

“It’s just a postage stamp suburban yard, but there’s a lot going on here,” Ransdell said of the yard’s abundant wildlife, which counts rabbits, skunks, raccoons and possums as visitors.

It wasn’t always like this. When Augusztiny purchased the home in 1996, the traditional yard looked like many others on his street with a Bermuda grass lawn, assorted shrubs and an apricot tree.

Advertisement
Purple Cleveland sage flowers in a garden

Milkweed, a favorite of monarch butterflies, left. Cleveland sage, Salvia clevelandii. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Purple Foothill penstemon flowers

Foothill penstemon grows in Eric Augusztiny’s drought-tolerant front yard.

Yes, Augusztiny acknowledges, lawns have appeal, but not in his West Valley neighborhood where “concrete is the equivalent of a frying pan,” and sustaining thirsty turf in triple-digit heat is impossible. “Even if I wanted a lawn — and I don’t — you can’t keep one alive here,” he said, pointing to the brown lawns that border his tree-lined street.

“The garden goes dormant in the summer but doesn’t die. Drought-tolerant plants are survivors. The sugar bush, toyon, manzanita, coffee berry, ceanothus and hummingbird sage hold their vivid green color year-round. The California fuchsia blooms into the fall, and although the salvias’ spikes above the foliage die back after flowering, the structure and leaves remain vital.”

Advertisement

Besides mowing the lawn, Augusztiny was not much of a gardener before he purchased his home. “I knew how to reseed the lawn. Again and again,” he said with a laugh. So he decided to learn all he could about removing his lawn, building healthy soil and replacing it with a drought-tolerant alternative.

He started by attending a demonstration on lasagna mulching led by artist-in-residence and horticulturist Leigh Adams at the Los Angeles County Arboretum’s Crescent Farm. The class inspired Augusztiny, who then checked out books on California native plants from the Los Angeles Public Library and attended a hands-on workshop at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Field Office.

When the couple remodeled their home in 2018, they decided it was a good time to remove the lawn. The LADWP’s lawn conversion program — which currently pays $5 per square foot to remove turf and replace it with low-water landscapes — was an incentive but not the primary driving force. “I wasn’t in it for the money,” Augusztiny said of the $2,000 rebate they received then, “but it helped cover the cost.”

A green lawn in front of a mustard-colored suburban home

Eric Augusztiny’s front yard in West Hills before he removed his lawn and replaced it with a drought-tolerant alternative.

(Eric Augusztiny)

Advertisement
A lawn is smothered in cardboard

Eric Augusztiny’s front lawn is smothered in cardboard during the sheet mulching process.

(Eric Augusztiny)

Suitably educated, Augusztiny decided to tear out his lawn and plant a low-water substitute himself. Just don’t call him a designer. “It was a process of figuring out a simple design, getting the drip system in and putting down the cardboard,” Augusztiny said of the process known as sheet mulching, where the cardboard is wetted down and covered with 3 inches of mulch.

When he smothered his lawn with cardboard, his neighbors often asked him what he was doing. “I told them I was getting rid of the Bermuda grass,” he recalled. “They all told me, ‘Good luck with that.’”

Taking classes offered Augusztiny some revelations as he planned his garden. He followed Adams’s suggestion to “paint with wildflowers” and scattered wildflower seeds on top of established plants. He planted hummingbird sage after he read that it grows well in the shade of oak trees. Concerned about the depletion of Western monarch butterflies due to habitat loss, he felt it was important to plant Narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis). “They have since shown up in droves,” he said.

Advertisement
A wild native garden and trees in West Hills

On the parkway, a coast live oak, Catalina cherry and silk tree provide shade. Augusztiny collects water using a rain barrel and rain chains. He also installed drip irrigation.

Regarding plants, Augusztiny made treks to native plant nurseries all over Los Angeles, including the California Botanic Garden in Claremont, Theodore Payne Foundation in Sunland and Pierce College in Woodland Hills. “Now, I have to stop because I’m generating my plants from harvesting the seeds and taking cuttings,” he said. “You can generate and regenerate the garden.” He even picked up free animal waste from the Los Angeles Zoo (known as “zoo doo”) at the Griffith Park Composting Facility.

He admits he killed some native plants initially because he overwatered them in the summer. That ended when he took a three-month hands-on course in native garden maintenance with Antonio Sanchez of the Santa Monica Mountains Fund in 2022. “I learned that drought-tolerant plants strengthen during the rainy season to ride out the dry season,” he said. He stopped drowning plants in the summer because he thought they were thirsty.

Matilija poppy.

A Matilija poppy grows in Eric Augusztiny’s drought-tolerant front yard.

After six years, Augusztiny thinks Adams’ “sleep, creep, leap” mantra has finally materialized. “She told us the plantings would sleep the first year, creep the second and then leap in the third,” he explained. “Ah, but with only 11.5 inches from 2020-2022, the garden wasn’t moving.”

Advertisement

Fast-forward two years. After two years of record rainfall in Los Angeles, the California native habitat has overwhelmed the front yard.

“I hate to steal a title from a Hollywood film,” said the actor, “but suddenly it was everything, everywhere all at once.”

Yellow narrowleaf sunflower grows in a garden

Narrowleaf sunflower grows in the garden.

The garden is wild and colorful with a heavenly fragrance attributed to the exploding sages — Cleveland (Salvia clevelandii), hummingbird (Salvia spathacea) and white (Salvia apiana) — along with colorful wildflowers like the fire-resistant California fuchsia (Epilobium canum) and purple Foothill penstemon (Penstemon heterophyllus).

Although many of the larger drought-tolerant plants are planted away from the street, some, such as bigberry manzanita (Arctostaphylos glauca), are dwarfed by California buckeye (Aesculus californica), coffeeberry (Frangula californica) and sugar bush (Rhus ovata).

Advertisement
A rain chain captures rainwater from the roof.

Rain chains capture rainwater from the roof.

Eric Augusztiny stands on the sidewalk between his garden and the parking strip

Augusztiny’s front yard and parking strip are overflowing with drought-tolerant plants.

No longer a gardening novice, the Seattle native passionately advocates the “need to do our small part to help stem climate change.” He thinks creating a native habitat in his front yard and installing rain barrels and a permeable driveway in the face of record-breaking heat waves is a good place to start.

“I enjoy nature, and Los Angeles has it all,” he said. “I’m not a purist when it comes to plants. I like to refer to them as climate-appropriate. But the more blacktops we can eliminate and the less stormwater runoff there is, the better our water quality and lives will be.”

Now, when neighbors walk their kids to school, they don’t ask him what he’s doing in his front yard. “They compliment the garden,” said Augusztiny, who waters twice a month. “The garden is not just for me. It’s for everyone.”

Advertisement

Plants in this garden

Arabian lilac (Vitex trifolia)

Coffee berry (Frangula californica)

Sugar bush (Rhus ovata)

Cleveland sage (Salvia clevelandii)

Advertisement

Narrow leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis)

Black sage (Salvia mellafera)

White sage (Salvia apiana)

Purple sage (Salvia leucophylla)

Bigberry manzanita (Arctostaphylos glauca)

Advertisement

Palmer’s abutilon (Abutilon palmeri)

Desperado sage (Salvia desperado)

Penstemon heterophyllus ‘Margarita BOP’

California fuchsia (Epilobium canum)

Purple needle grass (Nassella pulchra)

Advertisement

Australian emu bush (Eremophila glabra)

Snow berry (Symphoricarpos mollis)

California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum)

Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea ‘Las Pilitas’)

Nuttall’s sunflower (Helianthus nuttallii)

Advertisement

Giant wildrye (Elymus condensatus)

Toyon ( Heteromeles arbutifolia )

Dudleya abramsii

Coulter’s Matilija poppy (Romneya coulteri)

Ceanothus griseus var. horizontalis ‘Yankee Point’

Advertisement

Fiesta Marigold monkeyflower (Mimulus ‘Fiesta Marigold)

Mimulus (Diplacus) ‘Fiesta Marigold’

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending