ARETHA Franklin’s funeral will be held Aug. 31 in her hometown of Detroit.
The late singer’s publicist, Gwendolyn Quinn, said Friday that the funeral, to be held at Greater Grace Temple, is limited to the Queen of Soul’s family and friends.
Public viewings will take place Aug. 28 to 29 at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Franklin will be entombed at Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit, along with her father Rev. C.L. Franklin; sisters Carolyn Franklin and Erma Franklin; brother Cecil Franklin; and nephew Thomas Garrett.
Franklin died Thursday at her home in Detroit from pancreatic cancer. She was 76.
The MTV Video Music Awards plans on honoring the legacy of Franklin—they’re just not sure how they will do it.
The VMAs will air live Monday (Tuesday morning in the Philippines). Show executive producer Jesse Ignjatovic said his team is “working on a lot of different options.”
Ignjatovic said he’s working to find “the right tone and the right artist” to properly pay tribute to the Queen of Soul.
He added: “Whether it’s a performance or spoken—just something that’s organic and done in a way that feels tonally right because it’s Aretha Franklin.”
Frankin’s most famous song, “Respect,” became an anthem for women in the 1960s.
But Franklin never saw herself as a feminist heroine. That, she quipped, was Gloria Steinem’s role. But she leaves a legacy of indelible anthems that resonated deeply with women by celebrating their strength and individuality—and demanding, well, just a little respect.
“I don’t think I was a catalyst for the women’s movement,” she told Rolling Stone in 2014. “Sorry. But if I were? So much the better!”
The women’s movement was just getting going in 1967 when Franklin took on Otis Redding’s “Respect,” which soon became known as an anthem both for civil rights and for feminism. Franklin changed the song’s meaning, radically, just by singing it in her own, inimitable voice. She may not have intended it to be a feminist anthem, but she surely knew how it would resonate. Instead of a man asking for his “propers” when he got home, here a woman was asking for—no, requiring—that same respect, from her man and in a broader sense, from society.
“The statement was something that was very important, and where it was important to me, it was important to others,” she told Vogue magazine. “Not just me or the civil rights movement or women—it’s important to people. ...Because people want respect, even small children, even babies. As people, we deserve respect from one another.” AP