In addition to the Roadwork staff, Sistersparks (volunteers) were the backbone and heart of the forthcoming fundraiser, resonating with the inclusive, urban, multiracial mission of the Festival.Roadwork transformed audiences at Sisterfire and other events into activist participants in a congregation devoted to fighting racism, sexism, homophobia and other regressive social forces. In this cauldron of local, national, international, multi-racial, cross-cultural issues, Roadwork wove together a coalition effort based on artistic collaboration among diverse communities. Civil rights’ gains faced challenges in the courts, while the Prison Industrial Complex targeted and disappeared Black and Brown communities for profit. Was it possible to launch an organization based on the concept of coalition, of women working together, sharing power and responsibility across racial, cultural, and class lines to produce, promote, and discover women’s culture as it exists on a global level? We were trying to build a multiracial coalition structure. That’s why it is called coalition and not home. There were very few models for an organization that was, in itself, a coalition. Bernice Johnson Reagon, singer and song leader, civil rights activist, scholar, advisor, Festival participant and staffer, Folkways artist, colleague, and friend, has had a profound influence upon the Center and its work. Roadwork concerts brought activists and artists into collaboration, inspiring tens of thousands of people to generate social change in reactionary times. Consciousnesses were being raised via second-wave feminism and zeitgeist moments in pop culture like the airing of Roots (viewed by more than half of the U.S. population). It’s complex.During the early years of Roadwork, we were activists  in our twenties and early thirties, and we were making the organization up as we went along. We worked with many networks of independent producers, distributors, and thought leaders, such as Olivia Records, Redwood Records, the Women’s Music Distribution Network to build alternative economic models and challenge mainstream cultural industries.

It is not easy to build a coalition because, although we “share” experiences of hurt, pain, anger, disappointment, and transgression, we often do not recognize the hurt in others.

Bernice Johnson Reagon and Toshi Reagon performed at the White House (l to r) Charles Neblett, Bernice Johnson, Cordell Reagon and Rutha Harris in 1963. These “disputed territories” coexist within each of us. In recent years, we supported the organizers of the Women’s March in 2017 and in 2018, we bought Roadwork’s unique cultural-political message to the National Mall for thousands to hear as we produced Sisterfire at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.We are inspired by a new generation of artists, volunteers, and audience members who are committed to Roadwork’s mission. The concept of coalition was not new; however, most coalitions were formed by a coming together of various organizations working around issues where a common thread could be found. I date my work as an organizer from being a student leader in my home town ofCordell, one of the SNCC field secretaries who came to Albany Georgia in 1961 was a wonderful tenor singer out of the Nashville Sit-in Movement. Peace even seemed fleetingly at hand with the Camp David Accords.But the hard work of achieving equal justice and equal power for all peoples was being met by powerful oppositional forces. He formed the first group of Freedom Singers from the movements he had been active in: Rutha Harris, soprano from Albany, Charles Neblett, bass from Cairo, Il and I sang alto. She recorded her first solo album, Folk Songs: The South, with Folkways Records in 1965. We hope you can join us! Management of the Music and Works of Bernice Johnson Reagon: Music licensing: contact Kathy Ostien | Booking: Jodi F. Solomon Speakers Bureau Music Commissions and other information: email or write to: Songtalk Publishing, PO Box 56482, Washington, DC 20040-6482 Widespread, covert, U.S. intelligence operations acted domestically against Black civil rights, Black power, and anti-war movements and globally against progressive movements in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Chile, and the Middle East. Bernice was born in Albany, Georgia, in 1942. Many late nights were filled with heated discussion about what the organization would be. It is not a place to find an intimate friend circle where the expectation is deep resonance. Mission. We trained a generation of organizers, producers, and women leaders to recognize that domestic politics in the United States are integrally tied to global struggles for justice. We bought a particular voice and focus to the equation — an attempt to face racism within the women’s movement, the left and the labor movements and homophobia and misogyny through a focus on building coalitions across difference.Roadwork was and continues to be at the forefront of today’s intersectional activism. For a leadership model, we sought guidance from Roadwork co-founder Bernice Johnson Reagon’s work in the southern Black civil rights movement as a singer, activist, and organizer and we sought lessons from our own work in anti-war collectives, women’s health centers, and women’s and gay rights movements.

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