Thousands of Aretha Franklin fans paid their last respects to the Queen of Soul on Tuesday, as the singer’s body lay at the Charles H Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.
Franklin died last week at the age of 76, from pancreatic cancer and in the city where she began her career singing gospel in the New Bethel Baptist church choir.
Her soaring voice, seared with emotion, would become the inspirational standard for other singers to match.
Hundreds lined up before dawn on Tuesday outside the museum, where the body of the late “Queen of Soul” will lie for two days of public viewing. The line stretched along Warren Avenue, down Brush Street, and toward Farnsworth Street. Lifelong fans and young admirers waited together.
Bre Faison, 72, and her eight-year-old grandson Jarod Faison, got up early to join the queue. Faison said her cousin was Franklin’s classmate, and she first heard of Franklin when the singer was 14.
“God had already given her what she needed. She’s at rest now, she’s at peace from everything she’s gone through in life and God knows her heart. She was definitely a very original person, just the love that she poured into the city,” she said.
Some had trekked across the country to pay homage. When Franklin’s casket was escorted into the museum, 46-year-old Sir Diego Brazil of North Miami Beach, Florida said he couldn’t help but burst into a rendition of Amazing Grace.
“I embodied her spirit because that’s one of her favorites,” said Brazil. “In 1997, her music kept me from committing suicide during a tumultuous time. That’s how powerful her presence in music has been in my life, and I’m sure I’m one of many.”
Throughout her expansive career, Franklin’s music punctuated pivotal moments for individuals but also for the country.
James Miller of Milwaukee, 71, said: “I’m a Vietnam veteran, she brought us home because we listened to Aretha when we were in combat. She’s a queen, she did a lot of things for people that a lot of people don’t know.”
Franklin’s hits, ranging from Rock Steady to Ain’t No Way, echoed through the crowd. People danced, laughed and smiled while sharing their favorite memories of the singer. The doors of the museum opened at 9am and people trickled in. Many made a tearful exit after paying their respects.
Paula Marie Seniors said the setting for the public viewings could not be more fitting. An associate professor of Africana studies at Virginia Tech, he said Franklin was “being honored almost like a queen at one of the most important black museums in the United States”.
Seniors said Franklin was “a singer of the universe” but also “so unapologetically black” and “so proud of being a black woman”.
In 2005, the museum hosted a similar viewing for the civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
Franklin, a preacher’s daughter, first topped the charts in 1967 with Respect, her no-nonsense reworking of a modest hit for Otis Redding that became an enduring anthem for feminism and the civil rights movement.
Chaka Khan, Jennifer Hudson, Ronald Isley and Stevie Wonder, among others, are due to sing at Franklin’s funeral on Friday at Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple. Bill Clinton, who had Franklin sing at his 1993 inauguration celebrations, will be among the speakers. She also sang at Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.
Franklin was born in Memphis, Tennessee but moved to Michigan as a small child, as the city became a refuge for black Americans escaping racist Jim Crow segregation laws.
The city, which would become synonymous with the secular outgrowth of gospel music known as soul, is treating Franklin’s death as the passing of royalty, with a week of mourning including a free tribute concert at a park on Thursday evening.
While Friday’s funeral will be closed to the public, the streets outside are due to be lined with dozens of pink Cadillacs, the Detroit-built luxury cars. Franklin sang of cruising through the city in a pink Cadillac in her 1985 hit Freeway of Love, which earned her one of her 18 Grammy awards.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this story