Aretha Franklin

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/12/2022
  

  Released FBI File Shows Extent of Government Spying on Aretha Franklin

  Beverly Gage says the surveillance was par for the course under J. Edgar Hoover's leadership, when Black figures with any suspected links to civil rights or militant politics was a target.

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  8/31/2021
  

  "Respect" Highlights the Other Black Women Artists who Helped Aretha Franklin Become the Queen of Soul

  by Fredara M. Hadley

  "Black women, even female Black entertainers, are rarely accorded that sense of control over their own lives. But as Aretha Franklin’s longevity in music and life demonstrated, the possibilities are endless when Black women are the center of their own universe."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/19/2021
  

  In ‘Genius: Aretha,’ Respecting the Mind, Not Just the Soul

  "The full scale of Franklin’s contributions to her own music has long been obscured. She was a gifted songwriter and a superb pianist. In the studio, she was a taskmaster, pushing herself and her collaborators until they captured the exact sound she heard in her head — not easy for a Black female musician of her time."

• 
• SOURCE: The Washington Post
  8-16-18
  

  How Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’ became an anthem for civil rights and feminism

  Franklin, then just 24 years old, infused it with a soulful and revolutionary demand, a declaration of independence that was unapologetic, uncompromising and unflinching.