Civil Rights Leader, Freedom Singer Bernice Johnson Reagon to Deliver UNCA Commencement Address

Civil Rights leader and Freedom Singer Bernice Johnson Reagon.

Reagon, Dean Smith, and Roy Williams to Receive Honorary Degrees at May 15 Ceremony.

Staff Reports

UNC Asheville Chancellor Anne Ponder will confer honorary degrees on noted Civil Rights leader and Freedom Singer Bernice Johnson Reagon and legendary UNC Chapel Hill coaches Dean Smith and Roy Williams at the university’s spring commencement. The ceremony will be held at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 15, on the university’s quad. Reagon will give the commencement address to some 500 graduates.

A native of Georgia, Reagon became involved in the Civil Rights
movement as a college student. She was an original member of the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee Freedom Singers and a founding
member of the Harambee Singers. While a graduate student at Howard
University, she served as vocal director of the D.C. Black Repertory
Theatre and formed the internationally renowned African American women’s
a capella ensemble, Sweet Honey In The Rock. She led the group until
retirement in early 2004. Currently, she is a popular speaker at venues
across the nation, performing in her unique song-talk style.

Professor emeritus of history at American University, Reagon also
served as curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American
History and as the 2002-04 Cosby Chair of Fine Arts at Spelman College.
However, music remained a constant for Reagon. She acted as music
consultant, composer, and performer for several film and video projects,
including the award-winning Eyes on the Prize, the Emmy-winning We
Shall Overcome, and the feature film Beloved. She wrote the seminal text
on the subject of African American sacred music and has been featured
on numerous solo and group recordings with Sweet Honey In The Rock.

Tar Heel Coaches Dean Smith (left) and Roy Willliams (right) are legends of college basketball.

Tar Heel coaches Smith and Williams are legends of college
basketball. Smith is best known for his tenure in men’s basketball from
1961 until his retirement in 1997. While at North Carolina, Smith helped
promote desegregation by recruiting the university’s first African
American scholarship basketball player, Charlie Scott, and working for
equal treatment for African Americans by local businesses. He was
inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983, two years after his
induction into the North Carolina Hall of Fame.

Asheville native Williams has won the Associated Press Coach of
the Year award twice. In his career at the University of Kansas and at
UNC-Chapel Hill, Williams has taken his teams to seven Final Fours and
led the Tar Heels to two NCAA National Championships. In 2007, he was
inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

For more information about commencement, call UNC Asheville’s
Office of the Provost at (828) 251-6470 or click on
www.unca.edu/commencement.

NOTE: The North Asheville Tailgate Market, held on campus on
Saturday mornings, will be moved to the nearby parking lot of Covenant
Presbyterian Church on Edgewood Rd. during Commencement. It will return
to campus on May 22.