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 "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.
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"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.
(Reporting by Nick Carey in Detroit and Jonathan Allen in New York;
writing by Jonathan Allen; editing by Bill Berkrot, Bill Trott,
Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)
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