According to the local press, former President Barack Obama could attend the ceremony with the expected 4,000 guests. The soul diva will be on display in the Charles Wright Museum for two days, dedicated to the history of black Americans.
The funeral of Aretha Franklin will be held on August 31 in a large church of his. hometown of Detroit, confirmed his historic agent Gwendolyn Quinn on Friday. The city of Detroit, the capital of the American car where the singer died on Thursday at 76 after a long battle against cancer, is preparing to pay tribute to his star for several days, to the height of the legend that she had become. On 28 and 29 August, his body must be open to the public from 9 am to 9 pm in the Charles-Wright museum, dedicated to the history of black Americans, confirmed to AFP his agent.
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The funeral is planned for August 31 in the Greater Grace Temple, the largest Pentecostal church in Detroit, where the funeral of Rosa Parks took place in 2005. 1955 dared to challenge a ban on blacks in front of buses in Alabama, and became an icon of the struggle for civil rights of black Americans.
If the place seats up to 4,000 people, guests must be hand-picked: family members, loved ones and celebrities from the music world or other personalities, such as former President Barack Obama, could be invited, said Friday the local daily newspaper, the Detroit Fre e Press. The singer is buried at the cemetery where her father and three brothers and sisters rest, said Gwendolyn Quinn.
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Meanwhile fans of the diva, who started out as a nine-year-old gospel singer before demonstrating her four-octave talent, stayed from R & B to opera, show her admiration in the New Bethel Baptist Church on Friday. church of his father pastor, located in a poor neighborhood of the city of Michigan.
Since the announcement of her death on Thursday, she became a place of remembrance: anonymous succeeded in dropping messages, flowers, balloons and teddy bears, with in the background the great successes of Aretha. His admirers also paraded before the Motown Museum, housed in the former studio's of the record company of the same name, who were planning to broadcast his music throughout the weekend. If Aretha Franklin has never recorded a record, his music has always been associated with the sound of Motown.
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Former producer of Motown and blues and soul singer himself, told Smokey Robinson in an interview with Reuters that he heard Aretha Franklin for the first time when she 5 or 6 years old. , accompanying himself to the piano. "And she almost sang like she would sing like an adult," he recalls.
"We are all sad and heartbroken"
Fred Zilian, a professor at the University of Rhode Island came to Detroit for a reunion of former comrades from the prestigious West Point Military School, danced with his wife for the museum. "I should be sad because we lost Aretha Franklin, but I had to go out on the street to dance," he said, remembering how much he loved his music and that of the black artists who made the fame. Motown studio & # 39; s in the sixties. "The country was torn apart by racial issues and, as you can see, we're all white, but we did not care, he told AFP, it says a lot about the ability to bring music together." "It's really great. Of course we are all sad and we are heartbroken when we think about her death, but people come to the museum ", said the director of the Sheila-Spencer Museum.
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Many celebrities also wanted to greet this great artist. "It's hard to imagine the world without being a great singer, but her commitment to civil rights had an indelible impact on the world," tweet actress and singer Barbra Streisand, goodbye to Aretha Franklin. In 1987, the singer was the first woman to join the Rock and Roll Gallery of Honor. In 2010, Rolling Stone Magazine placed her at the top of her list of the 100 greatest singers of all time, both men and women. Aretha Franklin had sung at the inauguration ceremonies of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
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