I began singing as a solo unaccompanied singer in 1962. It was a great time for folk music of all kinds: traditional music of all kinds form many cultures, new topical songs, freedom songs. And so many places to sing, my first job was as an unaccompanied folk singer at Café Lena Folk Club in Saratoga Springs, New York.<\/p>\n Read the full post\u2026<\/a><\/div> I date my work as an organizer from being a student leader in my home town of In 1966, a group of parents who had started an interracial pre-school in Atlanta had a fundraiser for the school. We created the Penny Festival, the script was created by Charlie Cobb, Julius Lester, Vincent Harding and myself. After the performance, Mary Ethel Jones and Mattie Casey knocked on my door and said, we want to sing. We formed the Harambee Singers<\/em>, a group of five or six Black Women a cappella singers who sang for the Black Consciousness\/Black Studies\/Black Power\/Black Arts gatherings. It was a choral Black women collective voice calling for unity.<\/p>\n Read the full post\u2026<\/a><\/div> Now moving well into it fourth decade, Sweet Honey In The Rock<\/em>, was organized by Bernice Johnson Reagon as an African American women a cappella ensemble in 1973 in Washington, DC. <\/p>\n Read the full post\u2026<\/a><\/div> I used the term\u00a0songtalk<\/em>\u00a0for the first time in 1975 to name the genre of a theater work,\u00a0A Day, A Life, A People<\/em>. It was not a\u00a0musical<\/em>\u00a0everything was sung, even the prose. I wanted a term that would be closer to the ground than\u00a0opera<\/em>, so I came up with\u00a0songtalk<\/em>to describe a music genre capable of all levels of spoken communication.<\/p>\n Read the full post\u2026<\/a><\/div> I hear music all the time. I have always heard it: so much sometimes that it seems I could never get enough of it out. Many times feeling on the verge of bursting because there is only one me and…<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/div>Freedom Singers<\/a><\/h3>
\nAlbany, Georgia. My work as an organizer, and singer was combined in my work as a Freedom Singer<\/em> and field secretary for SNCC. We sang wherever we could find an audience, from concert halls, to living rooms to elementary schools.<\/p>\n Read the full post\u2026<\/a><\/div>
<\/div>Harambee Singers<\/a><\/h3>
<\/div>Sweet Honey in the Rock<\/a><\/h3>
<\/div>songtalker<\/a><\/h3>
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![\"SingOut\"](\"https:\/\/www.bernicejohnsonreagon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/SingOut.jpg\")
I hear music all the time. I have always heard it: so much sometimes that it seems I could never get enough of it out. Many times feeling on the verge of bursting because there is only one me and one voice. Something in me wants to get rid of my physical shell and be a song.<\/p>\n