The Funeral and Casket Details of Aretha Franklin

Introduction

Aretha Franklin died on 16 August 2018 at her home in Detroit. She was 76. Over the two weeks that followed, the city she grew up in gave her a farewell that ran for days, and almost every part of it was open to the public who wanted to be there.

Her casket became one of the most photographed in modern American life, a solid bronze case plated in gold that sat in the rotunda of a museum while thousands of people filed past. Here is what has been confirmed about her death, the viewings, the funeral at Greater Grace Temple and the casket itself.

The Life and Legacy of Aretha Franklin

She was born in Memphis in 1942 and raised in Detroit, where her father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin, preached at New Bethel Baptist Church. She learned to sing in his congregation and never really left gospel behind, even once "Respect" turned her into the voice of a decade. Her official site records 44 Grammy nominations, 18 wins and five recordings in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1994 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, where the official photograph caught her wiping away a tear. She sang at Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009 in the grey bow hat that became its own piece of American iconography. In 2019, months after her death, the Pulitzer board gave her a special citation "for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades".

The News of Aretha Franklin's Passing

She died at 9:50 in the morning on Thursday 16 August 2018, at home in Detroit, surrounded by family and friends. Her family said the cause was advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type, and that account was confirmed by her oncologist, Dr Philip Phillips of the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. She had been ill for some time, and she had kept the detail of it close.

The family's statement set the tone for everything that followed. "In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart," it read. "We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family." Within hours the marquee outside the Apollo in Harlem carried her name, and Detroit radio stations had given over whole afternoons to her records.

The Funeral Arrangements for Aretha Franklin

Her family chose to give the public three separate chances to say goodbye. She lay in repose on 28 and 29 August at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, in the museum's rotunda, a bright round room filled with flowers. People came from Toronto, Las Vegas and Miami and queued for hours. A third viewing followed on 30 August at New Bethel Baptist Church, her father's old pulpit, and a tribute concert was held at the Detroit riverfront amphitheatre the same evening.

The funeral itself was held on Friday 31 August 2018 at Greater Grace Temple on West Seven Mile Road, the same church that had hosted Rosa Parks's funeral in 2005. It was planned as a five hour service and ran for most of the day. Her body was carried in a 1940 Cadillac LaSalle hearse belonging to Swanson Funeral Home, the same car that had carried her father in 1984, the Temptations singer David Ruffin in 1991 and Rosa Parks in 2005. Outside the church, more than a hundred pink Cadillacs lined the street, a nod to "Freeway of Love".

The Casket Details of Aretha Franklin

The casket was solid bronze, plated in gold, and lined with champagne velvet. Her name and the words Queen of Soul were embroidered into the lining in gold metallic thread. O'Neil Swanson II, the funeral director who handled the arrangements, described it to reporters as 24 karat gold plated and the top of the line. No manufacturer or model name was released by the family or the funeral home, and none has been confirmed since, so the make of the casket remains unreported.

What was reported, repeatedly, is how carefully she was presented inside it. Her family changed her outfit for each viewing. On the first day she wore a ruby red lace dress with five inch red patent Christian Louboutin pumps, her legs crossed at the ankles. On the second she wore powder blue with matching heels. At New Bethel she wore a sparkling rose gold gown with gold sequined Louboutins and a pink South Sea pearl set made for the occasion. For the funeral she wore gold with sequined heels, her fourth outfit of the week. Her niece Sabrina Owens later said there was no grand plan behind it, that it simply seemed natural to the family. If you are weighing similar choices, our guide to different types of celebrity caskets covers the materials and finishes involved, and our caskets collection shows the range most families work from.

Attendees and Eulogies

Former President Bill Clinton spoke, called himself "an Aretha Franklin groupie" and played a snippet of "Think" from his phone at the pulpit. The Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Reverend Al Sharpton gave remarks, as did Detroit mayor Mike Duggan, the producer Clive Davis, Tyler Perry and Cicely Tyson. Smokey Robinson, who had known her since childhood, remembered hearing her play piano at the age of eight. Members of the Franklin family spoke for themselves, among them Vaughn, Cristal, Victorie and Jordan Franklin.

The music ran as long as the speaking. Ariana Grande sang "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman". Faith Hill sang "What a Friend We Have in Jesus". Jennifer Hudson, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Ron Isley and Franklin's own son Edward all performed, and the Aretha Franklin Orchestra played a medley of her records. The service closed and the procession moved on to the cemetery in the late afternoon.

The Impact on Fans and the Industry

The queues at the Wright Museum were the part nobody had quite predicted. People arrived before dawn in church hats, tiaras and feather boas, and a local station played her music outside while the line sang along. One woman came on a bus from Toronto. The museum described the way she had been laid out, red dress, crossed ankles, heels on, as carrying both power and comfort, and board member Kelly Major Green said it showed the Queen of Soul was a diva to the end.

Detroit then put her name on the map in a literal sense. The riverfront amphitheatre at Chene Park was renamed the Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre, and a stretch of road near the Wright Museum became Aretha Franklin Way. For a city that had claimed her as its own since she was a child in her father's church, those were not small gestures.

Legacy and Remembering Aretha Franklin

She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, in the same grounds as her father, Reverend C. L. Franklin, and her sisters Erma and Carolyn. Rosa Parks rests there too, in the chapel mausoleum that now carries her name. It is a short drive from New Bethel Baptist Church, which is to say she was buried inside the few square miles that made her.

The Pulitzer citation arrived in April 2019 and made her the first individual woman to receive one of the board's special awards. Her catalogue has only grown in reach since, and the gold casket has become part of how people picture her ending, the same way the hat belongs to the inauguration. Her funeral is now one of the reference points people reach for when they talk about what an American farewell can look like, alongside Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.

Conclusion

Aretha Franklin's family did two things at once. They kept her illness private while she was alive, and then they held the door wide open once she had gone, giving Detroit three days of viewings and a funeral that anybody could watch. The gold plated bronze casket, the champagne velvet, the four outfits and the 1940 LaSalle hearse were all part of the same decision, which was that she should be sent off exactly as she had lived.

Most families will never plan anything on that scale, but the choices underneath it are the same ones everyone faces, and they are far easier on the people left behind when they are written down in advance. Setting out your funeral wishes or pre-planning a casket takes those decisions off their shoulders at the worst possible moment. You can read more farewells in our celebrity caskets and funerals collection, including two other giants of American music, Quincy Jones and Tony Bennett.

Sources

• PBS NewsHour, "Aretha Franklin, Queen of Soul, dies at 76", 16 August 2018
• PBS NewsHour, "Fans mourn Aretha Franklin at public viewing in Detroit", 28 August 2018
• Essence, "Family Of Aretha Franklin Confirms Singer Passed Away After Battling Pancreatic Cancer", August 2018
• Billboard, "Aretha Franklin's Cancer Doctors Recall Her Grace and Grit", 2018
• CBS News, "Presidents, pop stars bid farewell to the Queen of Soul", 31 August 2018
• CBS News Detroit, "The Latest: Aretha Franklin's Public Viewing, Fans Mourn At The Charles H. Wright Museum", 28 August 2018
• ABC News, "Aretha Franklin mourned and celebrated by politicians, preachers and music legends", 31 August 2018
• NPR, live coverage of the Aretha Franklin public viewing, 29 August 2018
• Chicago Sun-Times, "Aretha Franklin dressed in rose gold for final church viewing", 30 August 2018
• Chicago Sun-Times, "Aretha Franklin dressed in blue for second day of public viewing", 29 August 2018
• The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Hearse carrying Aretha Franklin also carried her father and Rosa Parks", August 2018
• The Detroit News, "Why Aretha Franklin had outfit changes during her visitation", 16 November 2018
• WDIV ClickOnDetroit, "Aretha Franklin to be buried at Woodlawn Cemetery: Here's who else is there", 31 August 2018
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (official), Aretha Franklin inductee page
• The Kennedy Center (official), Aretha Franklin artist page
• The Pulitzer Prizes (official), Aretha Franklin special citation, 2019
• George W. Bush White House Archives (official), Presidential Medal of Freedom photographs, 9 November 2005
• arethafranklin.net (official)

Image credits

Aretha Franklin performing at the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama at the United States Capitol, 20 January 2009. Official White House photograph P012009KB-0506, from the Barack Obama Presidential Library, published by the US National Archives. The Obama Presidential Library finding aid for photographs of Aretha Franklin states that documents in the collection prepared by officials of the United States government as part of their official duties are in the public domain. Licence verified at source.