Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon, composer, songleader and historian, is Distinguished Professor of History at American University and Curator Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution. She founded the musical group Sweet Honey In The Rock in 1973. Dr. Reagon conceptualized the NPR and Smithsonian Peabody-award-winning radio series Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music Traditions. A 1989 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, Reagon was also awarded the 1995 Charles Frankel Prize for outstanding contribution to public understanding of the humanities by the National Endowment for the Humanities.