No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Bernice Johnson Reagon's Musical Coalition Politics, 1966–81
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2024
Abstract
In 1981, Bernice Johnson Reagon gave a talk at the West Coast Women's Festival, challenging the group of mainly white feminists to embrace coalition politics—a political praxis theorized and advocated by Black and Israeli feminists that sought to build coalitions only after distinct group identities were embraced and nurtured. Long before she articulated this concept as the future of the Movements within which she worked, Reagon piloted it in her post-Civil Rights Movement music making. In her work with the Harambee Singers and the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project between 1966 and 1974, Reagon developed a musical coalition politics that would inform her later interventions. Not only were Reagon's musical coalition politics during this period a musical embodiment of the vanguard of feminist theory, but they also shed light on how one of the most important musician-scholar-activists of the twentieth century approached the crafting of a new political identity in conversation with the shifting front of the Black Freedom Movement in the immediate wake of the classical phase of the Civil Rights Movement. This little-known period of Reagon's output offers scholars of Black music, scholars of American music, feminists/Black feminists, and activists much to contemplate and incorporate into our work.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for American Music
References
References
Jamila Jones oral history interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier in Atlanta, Georgia, April 27, 2011. Civil Rights History Project collection. Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/item/2015669108/.Google Scholar
Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (2004). Southern Folklife Collection. Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Benson, Richard D. “From Malcolm X to Malcolm X Liberation University: A Liberatory Philosophy of Education, Black Student Radicalism and Black Independent Educational Institution Building 1960–1973.” PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010.Google Scholar
Bodroghkozy, Aniko. Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.Google Scholar
DuBois, W. E. B. The Negro Problem, edited by Washington, Booker T.. 1903. Reprint, Amherst: Humanity Books, 2003.Google Scholar
Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. Abolition Geography: Essays toward Liberation. London and Brooklyn: Verso, 2022.Google Scholar
Gray, Herman. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Greene, Christina. “‘She Ain't No Rosa Parks’: The Joan Little Rape-Murder Case and Jim Crow Justice in the Post-Civil Rights South.” The Journal of American History 100, no. 3 (Summer, 2022): 428–47.Google Scholar
Hall, Jacqueline Dowd. “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past.” The Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (March 2005): 1233–63.Google Scholar
Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar
Joseph, Peniel, ed. The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. New York: Routledge, 2006.Google Scholar
Kaba, Mariame. We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transformative Justice. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2021.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? 1968. Reprint, Boston: Beacon Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Lopez, Antonio R. “‘We Know What the Pigs Don't Like’: The Formation and Solidarity of the Original Rainbow Coalition.” Journal of African American Studies 23 (2019): 476–518.10.1007/s12111-019-09442-wCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazzacco, Philip. The Psychology of Racial Colorblindness: A Critical Review. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.10.1057/978-1-137-59302-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neal, Mark Anthony. What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture. New York: Routledge, 1999.Google Scholar
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. “Coalition Politics: Turning the Century.” In Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, edited by Smith, Barbara, 343–55. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. “Uncovered and without Shelter, I Joined this Movement for Freedom.” In Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in the SNCC, edited by Holsaert, Faith S. et al., 119–27. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Reagon, Bernice Johnson, and Sweet Honey in the Rock. We Who Believe in Freedom: Sweet Honey in the Rock…Still On the Journey. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1993.Google Scholar
Rustin, Bayard. “From Protest to Politics.” In Black Protest Thought in the Twentieth Century, edited by Meier, August, Rudwick, Elliot, and Broderick, Francis L., 444–59. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril Educational Publishing, 1980.Google Scholar
Smethurst, James. “The Black Arts Movement in Atlanta.” In Neighborhood Rebels: Black Power at the Local Level, edited by Joseph, Peniel, 173–90. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.10.1057/9780230102309_9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stacks, Stephen Andrew. “Headed for the Brink: Freedom-Singing in U.S. Culture After 1968.” PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2019.Google Scholar
Stewart, Bruce, Shapiro, Linn, and Romaine, Anne. Oh, What a Time: The Southern Grassroots Music Tour. Nashville: Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, 1982.Google Scholar
Williams, Jakobi. From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Jamila Jones oral history interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier in Atlanta, Georgia, April 27, 2011. Civil Rights History Project collection. Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/item/2015669108/.Google Scholar
Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (2004). Southern Folklife Collection. Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Benson, Richard D. “From Malcolm X to Malcolm X Liberation University: A Liberatory Philosophy of Education, Black Student Radicalism and Black Independent Educational Institution Building 1960–1973.” PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010.Google Scholar
Bodroghkozy, Aniko. Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.Google Scholar
DuBois, W. E. B. The Negro Problem, edited by Washington, Booker T.. 1903. Reprint, Amherst: Humanity Books, 2003.Google Scholar
Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. Abolition Geography: Essays toward Liberation. London and Brooklyn: Verso, 2022.Google Scholar
Gray, Herman. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Greene, Christina. “‘She Ain't No Rosa Parks’: The Joan Little Rape-Murder Case and Jim Crow Justice in the Post-Civil Rights South.” The Journal of American History 100, no. 3 (Summer, 2022): 428–47.Google Scholar
Hall, Jacqueline Dowd. “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past.” The Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (March 2005): 1233–63.Google Scholar
Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar
Joseph, Peniel, ed. The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. New York: Routledge, 2006.Google Scholar
Kaba, Mariame. We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transformative Justice. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2021.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? 1968. Reprint, Boston: Beacon Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Lopez, Antonio R. “‘We Know What the Pigs Don't Like’: The Formation and Solidarity of the Original Rainbow Coalition.” Journal of African American Studies 23 (2019): 476–518.10.1007/s12111-019-09442-wCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazzacco, Philip. The Psychology of Racial Colorblindness: A Critical Review. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.10.1057/978-1-137-59302-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neal, Mark Anthony. What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture. New York: Routledge, 1999.Google Scholar
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. “Coalition Politics: Turning the Century.” In Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, edited by Smith, Barbara, 343–55. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. “Uncovered and without Shelter, I Joined this Movement for Freedom.” In Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in the SNCC, edited by Holsaert, Faith S. et al., 119–27. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Reagon, Bernice Johnson, and Sweet Honey in the Rock. We Who Believe in Freedom: Sweet Honey in the Rock…Still On the Journey. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1993.Google Scholar
Rustin, Bayard. “From Protest to Politics.” In Black Protest Thought in the Twentieth Century, edited by Meier, August, Rudwick, Elliot, and Broderick, Francis L., 444–59. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril Educational Publishing, 1980.Google Scholar
Smethurst, James. “The Black Arts Movement in Atlanta.” In Neighborhood Rebels: Black Power at the Local Level, edited by Joseph, Peniel, 173–90. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.10.1057/9780230102309_9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stacks, Stephen Andrew. “Headed for the Brink: Freedom-Singing in U.S. Culture After 1968.” PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2019.Google Scholar
Stewart, Bruce, Shapiro, Linn, and Romaine, Anne. Oh, What a Time: The Southern Grassroots Music Tour. Nashville: Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, 1982.Google Scholar
Williams, Jakobi. From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.Google Scholar