Nobody would call Aretha Franklin a central figure of the civil rights movement. And she was not an overt feminist.
But the singer, who died Thursday at 76, shot to fame in 1967 with a hit song that inspired millions of women and African Americans during a turbulent period of social upheaval in America.
You know the tune, and you even know how to spell it: R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Franklin’s signature song and biggest hit, “Respect” burst from dance halls, car radios and porch windows amid a turbulent year marked by racial tensions and women lobbying for equal rights.
“I think ‘Respect’ was her national anthem, because everybody could relate to that,” Leon Jones, 60, told CNN Wednesday at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, where he had stopped to pray for the ailing Queen of Soul.
“I think she was just talking to people in general,” added Jones, who is black. “Not just African Americas, not just Asians, not just Caucasian people, but everybody, because you could get disrespected in daily life.”