A Detroit church swelled with
the sound of gospel music on Friday as family, friends and fans
of Aretha Franklin bid rousing farewell to the Queen of Soul at
a funeral that featured tributes by former U.S. President Bill
Clinton and singer Stevie Wonder.
"Come on, this is a church service, lift your voice!" Bishop
Charles Ellis III, the officiant, exhorted the congregation at
the Greater Grace Temple, as the choir and orchestra swayed
behind him.
The crowd grew louder, its ranks bolstered by the powerful
voices of Gladys Knight, Jennifer Hudson, Chaka Khan, Shirley
Caesar and Ariana Grande, who came to pay musical tribute to
Franklin following her death on Aug. 16 at age 76.
Before the golden casket was closed at the top of a service,
Franklin's body could be seen dressed in gold sequins. More than
eight music-filled hours later, Stevie Wonder took to the stage
to close out the ceremony with a performance of his song "As,"
the crowd joining him in its refrain: "I'll be lovin' you
always."
"She had the voice of a generation, maybe the voice of a
century," Clinton said, describing himself as a Franklin
"groupie" long before he became president. Ending his remarks,
Clinton held the microphone to his smartphone and played
Franklin's 1968 hit "Think" over the church's speakers.
Civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were
onstage to honor Franklin's contributions to black empowerment,
sharing front-row seats with Louis Farrakhan, the black
nationalist and Nation of Islam leader. Sharpton took to the
pulpit to laud Franklin for providing the soundtrack of the
movement, with songs such as her signature 1967 hit "Respect."
"She was a black woman in a white man's world," Sharpton
said, as mourners cheered. "She was rooted in the black church,
she was bathed in the black church, and she took the black
church downtown and made folks that didn't know what the Holy
Ghost was shout in the middle of a concert."
Franklin was recalled as both an American institution, who
sang at the presidential inaugurations of Jimmy Carter, Bill
Clinton and Barack Obama, and as an aunt and grandmother, who
took her young relatives shopping or to see Disney on Ice shows.
"Nothing sounded better to me than the way my grandma
sings," Victorie Franklin said.
Smokey Robinson, the Motown singer and a long-time friend,
crooned a few lines of his song "Really Gonna Miss You." Ariana
Grande belted out "Natural Woman" while Gladys Knight took on
"You'll Never Walk Alone." An ensemble performance of "Precious
Lord" so moved the congregation that the officiant told the
orchestra to keep vamping as clergy danced on the stage,
expanding a program that by then was already running two hours
behind schedule.
The funeral had been billed as closed to the public, but
crowds of fans gathered outside, many dressed in their Sunday
best. "This is as close you get to royalty here in America and
Aretha earned every bit of it," said Missy Settlers, 53, an
automotive parts assembler. Some fans were admitted into the
church to sit behind Franklin's family.
Franklin, who died at her Detroit home from pancreatic
cancer, began her musical career as a child singing gospel at
the city's New Bethel Baptist Church.
The city has treated her death as the passing of royalty,
with Franklin's body laying in repose in the Charles H. Wright
Museum of African American History for two days of public
visitation earlier this week.
Her coffin is to be entombed in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery
near the remains of her father; her brother, Cecil Franklin; and
her sisters, Carolyn and Erma Franklin.