Bernice Johnson Reagon, the founder of the women’s a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, died on Tuesday in Washington.
She was 81 and died in a hospital, according to her daughter, Toshi Reagon, who did not give a cause. Bernice Reagon was an original member of the Freedom Singers, a vocal quartet that provided songs to inspire civil rights protesters preparing to confront the police.
The Freedom Singers were associated with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which sent them to events across the South, as well as to the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island in 1963.
She went on to earn a doctorate in American history from Howard University in 1975 and to direct the Black American Culture Program at the Smithsonian.
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