[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 137 (Friday, August 17, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1156-E1157]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




IN MEMORY OF ARETHA FRANKLIN, LEGENDARY PERFORMING ARTIST, CIVIL RIGHTS 
       ACTIVIST, CULTURAL ICON, AND FIRST LADY AND QUEEN OF SOUL

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, August 17, 2018

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate the extraordinary 
and consequential life of Aretha Franklin, the ``First Lady and Queen 
of Soul.''
  Aretha Franklin passed away this morning at the age of 76 at her home 
in Detroit after waging a long and valiant battle against pancreatic 
cancer.
  For more than a half-century the world was thrilled, inspired, and 
captivated by the scintillating presence and magical voice of the woman 
instantly known and recognizable the world over simply as ``Aretha.''
  Born in 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee, Aretha's family eventually 
relocated to Detroit, where she was raised and learned to sing.
  When Aretha was 10, her mother passed, and a number of women, 
including the legendary gospel singer Mahalia Jackson helped take care 
of Aretha and her siblings.
  It was around this time that Aretha started playing piano, singing 
and performing gospel songs at her father's church in Detroit.
  On singing in church Aretha once remarked, ``You have the ethereal 
feeling there. It is the house of the Lord. It is the Supreme Being. So 
there is no greater space to sing in than the church.''
  Aretha recorded a gospel album when she was just 14 and four years 
later signed with Columbia Records then Atlantic Records, where she 
achieved international recognition for internationally loved songs such 
as ``Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody'' and ``Natural Woman.''
  Aretha's music defined a modern female archetype: sensual and strong, 
long-suffering but ultimately indomitable, loving but not to be taken 
for granted.
  Aretha's contributions to music and pop culture received several 
honors throughout her life.
  She won a total of 18 Grammy awards; the first in 1967 for 
``Respect.''
  Aretha's ``Respect,'' the Otis Redding song that became her signature 
anthem, was never just about how a woman wanted to be greeted by a 
spouse coming home from work.
  It was a demand for equality and freedom and a harbinger of feminism, 
carried by the voice of a woman who would accept nothing less.
  Aretha's rendition of ``Respect'' resonated beyond individual 
relationships to the civil rights, counterculture and feminism 
movements.
  As Aretha wrote in her autobiography, ``It was the need of the 
nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the 
businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher--everyone wanted 
respect.''
  Aretha was later honored with a Grammys Legend Award in 1991 and a 
Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.
  In 2014, Aretha reached a new milestone by becoming the first woman 
to have her 100th hit on Billboard's Hot R&B and Hip-Hop Songs Chart.
  In a career spanning more than 50 years, Aretha's performances marked 
certain pivotal moments in U.S. history.
  A longtime family friend of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she 
sang ``Precious Lord'' at the civil rights leader's memorial service.
  Aretha was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of 
Fame in 1987.
  Aretha's stirring rendition of the ``Star Spangled Banner'' at the 
1992 Democratic Convention In New York City is considered one of the 
greatest of all time.
  Aretha performed ``America (My Country 'Tis of Thee)'' at the 
inauguration of President Barack Obama.
  And Aretha brought President Obama--and much of the audience--to 
tears six years later when she surprised Kennedy Center honoree Carole 
King with ``Natural Woman'' in 2015.
  Aretha's legacy goes far beyond music.
  By the standards of Paradise Valley, the business district and 
entertainment center of a densely-populated African-American 
residential area in Detroit, Aretha was a young woman of status and 
privilege.
  Nevertheless she suffered the same humiliations as any black woman 
travelling through the South or venturing into the white precincts of 
Detroit.
  By the time of the murder of Emmett Till, in 1955, her father, Rev. 
C. L. Franklin had opened New Bethel Baptist Church to the movement, 
and, from his pulpit, he denounced segregation and white supremacy.
  When Dr. King came to Detroit, he stayed at the home of the 
Franklins.
  On June 23, 1963, Rev. C. L. Franklin helped Dr. King organize the 
``Walk to Freedom,'' the march of more than a hundred thousand people 
through downtown Detroit that set the stage for the March of Washington 
two months later.
  At Detroit's Cobo Hall, Dr. King, acknowledging ``my good friend'' 
Rev. C. L. Franklin, delivered a speech filled with passages that would 
become world famous two months later when spoken at the March on 
Washington: ``This afternoon I have a dream,'' he told the crowd. ``I 
have a dream,'' that ``little white children and little Negro 
children'' will be ``judged by the content of their character and not 
the color of their skin.''
  Dr. King later confided to Rev. C. L. Franklin, ``Frank, I will never 
live to see forty.''
  At Dr. King's funeral, in April, 1968, Aretha was asked to sing 
Thomas Dorsey's ``Precious Lord.''
  Aretha was now a central voice in both the black community, eclipsing 
her father, and in the musical world.
  In 1970, Aretha offered to post a $250,000 bond to free Angela Davis, 
the demonized black activist then being held on charges of conspiracy, 
kidnapping and murder--charges of which she was later acquitted.
  Quoted in Jet magazine at the time, Aretha said: ``Angela Davis must 
go free. Black people will be free.''
  Mr. Speaker, it is easy to forget how unusual this was in an era when 
Aretha's Grammy-winning albums were still sold in segregated ``race 
music'' sections of record stores and when even the suggestion that a 
black woman might one day appear on the cover of September Vogue, as 
Beyonce now does, would have seemed like a pipe dream.
  It is important, too, to note that wearing an Afro or the head wraps 
Aretha was early to adopt was once as risky a political statement as 
taking a knee would later become.
  And while many of her musical contemporaries rarely ventured from 
their sartorial safe zones, Aretha remained boldly and exuberantly 
unconstrained in her tastes, confident about demonstrating both her 
individuality and her economic might by doing as another powerful black 
woman, Oprah Winfrey, one day would.
  Mr. Speaker, Aretha was a musical, spiritual, and cultural leader for 
America and around the world.
  Aretha exemplified the best of America--powerful, compassionate, 
fearless, and kind.
  Aretha personified the community from which she came: forever young, 
gifted, and black.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to observe a moment of silence in memory 
of one of the

[[Page E1157]]

greatest performing artists in American history, the inimitable, 
indomitable, and irrepressible Aretha Franklin, the First Lady and 
Queen of Soul.

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