Searching for Solid Ground by Reggie Harris with Linda Hansell (Boston: Skinner House, 2024) is a five-star book. Reggie Harris starts by describing the powerful music he grew up with in his Black community—a community “that understood the nature of perseverance, that understood the nature of hope and working towards hope” as he explains in a 2021 interview with The Bluegrass Situation. This same community spirit he then brought to schools across the country, widening into an international audience. We learn about his journey and the flame of justice he kept following.
Reggie’s autobiography takes us alongside through struggles and triumphs. The magic of his writing is that we are able to ache with him, learn as he learned, cheer him on and feel him cheering us. As the book jacket summarizes, he shares “his hard-won wisdom and insights, including the challenges he faced launching a career in folk music as a Black musician, his transformative experience hearing James Baldwin speak and the beginnings of his own justice work, and a harrowing journey back to health through the gift of a liver transplant, among many other remarkable moments.”
Reggie met Kim in 1974 while working at a summer camp. As a musical duo and as husband and wife, Kim and Reggie Harris were together for forty years—performing over 250 dates a year as they toured, researched, and recorded. Their lifetime achievements were celebrated by CMN through the Magic Penny Award in 2018; each received a story quilt depicting the Underground Railroad to honor their teaching of Black history. Reggie was honored twice in 2021 with the Spirit of Folk Award from Folk Alliance International and the W.E.B. Du Bois Legacy Award.
Solid ground means truth-telling. We learn how Reggie experienced touring while Black and driving while Black “before the term white privilege was in the public consciousness.” Solid ground means facing the horrific legacy of white supremacy, then leaning into potential. His video of “It’s Who We Are” shows person after person holding up signs saying, “We can change.”
In the interview with The Bluegrass Situation, Reggie recounts his mentor, C.T. Vivian, saying, “We knew that we were working for something bigger than ourselves. . . . We knew that we were working in the frame of love. For something, not against.” He connects this to his own mission: “I try to keep those messages at the forefront of my writing, at the forefront of my performing.”
Reggie’s song “On Solid Ground” inspired the title of his book. When he sings, “We will keep each other strong,” he means it. He’s lived it. He takes us behind the scenes of developing Deeper Than the Skin presentations with Greg Greenway. As music director and co-president of the Living Legacy Project, he shares his efforts to connect people to the history of the Civil Rights Movement. We feel his capacity for friendship extended to us, the readers.
When Reggie is performing, we hear his signature rhythmic guitar and see his smile as an unforgettable beacon lighting up the promised land of human connection and commitment. His book sends that beacon full force.