Aretha Franklin was a soul-singing
global icon with staggering commercial success
— notching 44
Grammy Award nominations and 18 wins, and releasing 19
albums in the 1960s, 11 from 1967 to
1969 alone.
She was also an artist whose life and
music was intertwined with civil rights and
the struggle
for black equality.
A gospel singer who was raised in the
church, she was the daughter of C.L.
Franklin, pastor of the New Bethel Baptist
Church in Detroit and a minister who marched
with Martin Luther King Jr. C.L. Franklin had
organized the June 1963 Walk
To Freedom, which was the largest civil rights
demonstration in the nation’s history until
the March on Washington a few months later.
Aretha’s mentor was Mahalia
Jackson, the gospel singer whose voice was
known as “the soundtrack of the Civil Rights
Movement” and who was a good
friend of King’s and inspired his “I Have A
Dream” speech.
Franklin sang “Take My Hand, Precious
Lord” at King’s
funeral in 1968, a song which Jackson
had popularized. That same year, Franklin also
sang the national anthem at the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago, during a tumultuous
political campaign and a year marked by civil
unrest, protests, police violence and
assassinations. Much like her mentor, Franklin
provided the soundtrack of an era.
“There’s no way to overstate what
Aretha meant to the generation that came of
age during the Civil Rights Movement,” Craig
Werner, professor of Afro-American Studies
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison told
NBC News. “She helped us make sense of
experiences, insisting with enormous grace and
fire that women’s voices had to be a part of
every conversation. She holds a special place
in the hearts of Vietnam veterans who knew she
sung ‘I Say a Little Prayer’ to help them
survive and heal.”
Black artists have traditionally been
agents of change through their music,
reflecting and shaping the issues of their
time. Examples include the voice of suffering
in Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit,” the audacious rage of Nina
Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam,” and the funky soul of James
Brown’s “Say It Loud — I’m
Black and I’m Proud.” Similarly, Aretha Franklin was a
voice of pride, hope
and freedom. Her rendition of the Otis Redding
song “Respect” became an undeniable anthem of
empowerment for African-Americans and women.
This week, Beyoncé
and Jay Z dedicated their Detroit concert
at Ford Field to Franklin. DJ Khaled opened
the show by playing “Respect,” prompting
the tens of thousands in attendance to sing
along.
Experts who have chronicled Franklin’s life and legacy say
this chart-topping hit was just the beginning
of Franklin’s impact.
“As the Civil
Rights Movement led to the Black Power era
of the 1960s and 1970s, and black pride
emerged as a response to racism and a
white-dominated society, and an affirmation
of African heritage and culture, Aretha was
there,” said Daphne
Brooks, a professor of African American
Studies and Theater Studies at Yale University
who has written extensively about how singers
like Franklin can transcend oppression through
their music.
“It is, of course, known that she sang at King’s funeral,”
Brooks said. “Less known is the fact that she
put up bail for Angela Davis, political
prisoner and Black Power feminist icon. She
covered Nina Simone’s beloved anthem ‘To Be
Young, Gifted, and Black,’ and her early 1970s
sartorial symbolism evoked black diasporic
elegance and grandeur. In terms of her musical
genius, her vocality sounded out rich
emotional nuance, intelligence and depth. It
conveyed the complexities of black women’s
inner-life worlds in ways unheard of before on
the pop chart.”
Five decades after the civil rights struggles, Franklin’s
music and message resonate today among a new
generation of fans and activists, as the many
heartfelt tributes to the “Queen of Soul”
demonstrate.
“Her force was both cultural and
political,” said John
Sims, a Detroit native and multimedia
artist and producer. “Her love and advocacy
for black people was undeniable and her
feminism unshakable. Before there were Black
Lives Matters and #Metoo, the Queen was
challenging us to ‘think’ and ‘respect’
ourselves, and to become better partners,
better citizens and better humans.”
Following the release of her “Young,
Gifted and Black” album, Franklin reflected on
the Black
Power movement and what was taking
place in the African-American community and
the impact
of the times on her own thinking:
“I believe that the black revolution
certainly forced me and the majority of
black people to begin taking a second look
at ourselves. It wasn’t that we were all
that ashamed of ourselves, we merely started
appreciating our natural selves . . . sort
of, you know, falling in love with ourselves
just as we are. We found that we had far
more to be proud of. So I suppose the
revolution influenced me a great deal, but I
must say that mine was a very personal
evolution — an evolution of the me in
myself.”
Meanwhile, the soul diva never abandoned her community,
Sims adds.
“She became extremely blessed and successful, [but] she
never forgot her roots, her people, her
family, and her hometown Detroit,” he said.
“Aways staying close to home, when others
left, speaks to her loyalty, faith and
commitment to a culture that cradled and
nurtured her divine genius in a country that
did not deserved it.”
“We owe Ms. Aretha Franklin our highest respect for being
the voice of our most meaningful form of human
intelligence: love. To honor her is to follow
her many messages and examples of love, grace
and community.”
This commentary is also posted on NBCNews.com.
