Celebrated Gospel Singer, Distinguished Professor
Bernice Johnson Reagon to Give Barnard College
108th Commencement Address
New
York, N.Y., April 18, 2001--Bernice Johnson Reagon,
renowned gospel singer and folklorist who has
devoted her life to promoting the African-American
gospel music tradition, will address Barnard College's
Class of 2001 at the 108th Commencement on Tuesday,
May 15, on Lehman Lawn at Barnard College, 117th
Street and Broadway, (rain location: Levien Gymnasium,
Columbia University).
Reagon
will receive the Barnard Medal of Distinction
along with: Maxine Greene '38, author and Wm.
F. Russell Professor Emerita of Teachers College,
who is recognized as a prolific American philosopher
of education and aesthetics; Morris Dees, Chief
Trial Counsel of The Southern Poverty Law Center,
a civil rights lawyer who has committed his life
to putting hate crimes on trial; and Susan Hendrickson,
famed diver and dinosaur hunter, who discovered
the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found.
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Bernice
Johnson Reagon
Bernice
Johnson Reagon, famed composer and singer in the
19th century southern tradition, founded Sweet
Honey in The Rock, a world-renowned African-American
women's a cappella ensemble, in 1973. A
historian and scholar, Reagon is a distinguished
professor of history at American University and
a Curator Emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution,
the National Museum of American History, where
she served for 20 years.
Reagon
has served as a music consultant, composer, and
performer for several award-winning film and video
projects; in 1989, she was awarded a MacArthur
Fellowship for her work as an artist and scholar
of African-American culture. She researched, produced
and hosted the groundbreaking Smithsonian Institution
and National Public Radio series, Wade in The
Water: African American Sacred Music Traditions,
which began broadcast in 1994 and won a Peabody
Award.
Reagon
specializes in the African-American oral, performance,
and protest traditions. After an extraordinary
three decades, Reagon remains the driving force
of Sweet Honey in the Rock. The much-acclaimed
group draws from the rich tradition of African-American
choral music, beginning in slavery when Africans
worked in the plantations, singing to the rhythm
of their forced labor. These basic work songs
formed the beginning of gospel music. As a solo
singer, Reagon describes herself as a "song leader
in the nineteenth century African-American choral
tradition in search of a congregation."
In the 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement,
Reagon was a member of the original SNCC (Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) Freedom Singers.
The Freedom Singers traveled the country, attending
meetings and protests and were often arrested.
The spirit of the Freedom Singers lives on in
Sweet Honey in the Rock. Reagon's group
has toured internationally throughout the years;
their song 'Emergency' was nominated for a Grammy
in 1988. In reviews of Sweet Honey's performances,
the words "mesmerizing" and "overwhelming" appear
frequently. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote
of Sweet Honey's concert in Australia in
1990: "[They] radiate strength and beauty...in
more than 20 years of reviewing concerts, I have
never been so deeply moved and so elated by a
performance."
Reagon
is the author and editor of several books, including:
If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me: The African
American Sacred Song Tradition (2000); How
I Got Over: Clara Ward and the World Famous Ward
Singers (1997); We'll Understand it Better
by and by: Pioneering African American Gospel
Composers (1993); We Who Believe in Freedom:
Sweet Honey in the Rock: Still on the Journey
(1993); and Black American Culture and Scholarship
(1985). Reagon also produced the landmark documentary
anthology, Voices of the Civil Rights Movement:
Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1965, a
three-record collection with accompanying booklet
for the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Recordings.
Publisher's
Weekly wrote of Reagon's anthology, We'll
Understand It Better by and by: Pioneering African
American Gospel Composers: "Reagon presents
a superb collection of essays--by academics who
are also gospel performers or record producers
-- that focus on major figures in black gospel
music: Charles A. Tindley, Lucie Campbell Williams,
Thomas A. Dorsey, William H. Brewster Sr., Roberta
Martin and Kenneth Morris."
Maxine
Greene '38
Dr.
Maxine Meyer Greene, prolific author and the William
F. Russell Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and
Education at Teachers College, has achieved numerous
honors and distinctions in the field of education.
After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Barnard College
in 1938, Greene went on to earn both an M.A. and
a Ph.D. in education from New York University.
Greene was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship in
1991 to study in New Zealand, and has received
various honorary degrees from such institutions
as Lehigh and Hofstra Universities as well as
from Bank Street College. Greene was the recipient
of two Educator of the Year Awards from Columbia
University in 1973 and from Ohio State University
in 1978. In 1988, Barnard College presented Greene
with its Woman of Achievement Award. Dr. Greene
was also president of the Philosophy Society of
America and is a former president of the American
Educational Studies Association.
Dr.
Greene is well known for the landmark achievement
of becoming the first tenured female faculty member
at Teachers College, where she has been a professor
since 1965. Greene holds a strong interest in
aesthetic education, a topic she frequently covers
in her lectures. In 1998, she donated over 200
art, philosophy and education-related books and
publications to the Teachers College Milbank Memorial
Library.
Dr.
Greene's most recent published works include:
A Light in Dark Times: Maxine Greene and the
Unfinished Conversation (1998); Releasing
the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts,
and Social Change (1995); Retrieving the
Language of Compassion: The Education Professor
in Search of Community (1990); and The
Dialectic of Freedom (1987).
Susan
Hendrickson
Susan
Hendrickson, famed diver and fossil hunter, emerged
as a key player in the world of archeological
exploration in 1990 with her discovery of a 65-million-year-old
Tyrannosaurus Rex in the badlands of South Dakota.
It is the largest and most complete T. Rex of
the 22 ever found; her discovery was unveiled
to the public on May 17, 2000, at Chicago's Field
Museum of Natural History.
Hendrickson
describes her reaction at the time of the T. Rex
discovery by saying, "It was like I was a sculptor
- the feeling is that you are creating her from
the rock, almost bringing her to life. You feel
like she waited for you....it's a thrill that
defies description. It's chemical, physical, emotional
- it's a body experience." Another significant
feature of this remarkable discovery is its gender;
the T. Rex uncovered by Henrickson is a female,
while the majority of T. Rexes have tended to
be males. The recently revealed dinosaur has been
titled "Tyrannosaurus Sue," named after Hendrickson.
Hendrickson
is best known for allowing scientists and museums
full access to the materials she finds. She is
not formally trained and does not hold a Ph.D.,
but she has become highly respected within her
field nonetheless. Hendrickson received an honorary
degree in May of 2000 from the University of Illinois
at Chicago for her "expansion of knowledge and
performance of exemplary service" with regard
to teaching, service and research, according to
Professor David Sokol. Professor Donald Marshall
described Hendrickson as "a determined person
with a passion for learning and a willingness
to pursue her passion."
Hendrickson's intellectual passion is clearly
demonstrated in her future plans for an expedition
to Alexandria, Egypt. There she plans to explore
its royal port, the remains of Cleopatra's palace,
Marc Antony's home, the temple of Poseidon and
a shipwreck. Hendrickson says that she would ideally
love to find "a family of T. Rexes buried together"
on her next archeological adventure.
Morris
Dees
Morris
Dees, a pioneering civil rights lawyer and activist,
is the Cofounder and Chief Trial Counsel of the
Southern Poverty Law Center. Born in Shorter,
Alabama, Dees attended the University of Alabama
and graduated from the University of Alabama School
of Law in 1960. He was finance director for Democratic
presidential nominee George McGovern in 1972,
served as former President Carter's national finance
director in 1976, and as national finance chairman
for Senator Kennedy's 1980 presidential campaign.
He originated the idea of a Civil Rights Memorial
that was dedicated in Montgomery, Alabama in 1989.
In the 1990s, he concentrated on suing white supremacist
groups. Dees' autobiography, A Season For Justice
(1991), was made into a television special in
1992.
Dees
has made his life's work bringing hatemongers
and racists to justice. He has excelled in convincing
juries that racist leaders should be held financially
accountable for their hate crimes, and in the
process bankrupted them. Now 64, Dees' life has
been threatened many times, but he continues to
fight for the poor and disenfranchised. Dees'
office was firebombed in 1983 and gunmen have
been spotted on the grounds of his home several
times. He has even been challenged to a duel "to
the death" by a Klansman. Dees wrote in his 1991
autobiography, A Season For Justice, "It
struck me I didn't have to count sheep to fall
asleep. I could count potential assassins."
His
second book, Hate on Trial: The Case Against
America's Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi, was published
in 1993. It chronicles the trial and $12.5 million
judgment against white supremacist Tom Metzger
and his White Aryan Resistance group for their
responsibility in the beating death by Skinheads
of a young black student in Portland, Oregon.
His latest book, Gathering Storm: America's
Militia Threat (1996), exposes the danger
posed by today's domestic terrorist groups.
Though known as a civil rights lawyer, Dees feels
he is not a spokesperson for any single group.
He once said: "I'm not for blacks or whites. I'm
for a fair shot."
Barnard College, founded in 1889, is a highly
selective independent college for women affiliated
with Columbia University in New York City. Barnard,
whose mission is to support the talent, vision,
and spirit of all women throughout their academic,
social, and professional lives, has a long-standing
tradition of graduating women who become leaders
in business, medicine, government, science, education,
public service and the arts.
Contact:
Petra Tuomi, Office of the Public Affairs, 212-854-7907
[For
a schedule and more information on commencement,
click here.]
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