Happy Birthday to singer, songwriter, and chart-topping superstar Aretha Franklin (b. March 25, 1942, in Memphis, TN), who was also an impactful activist committed to Black women’s social struggle. For example, in 1970 she offered to pay Angela Davis’s bail in the name of Black freedom. Shortly thereafter she told Jet magazine: “I’m going to stick by my beliefs. Angela Davis must go free. Black people will go free. I’ve been locked up (for disturbing the peace in Detroit) and I know you got to disturb the peace when you can’t get no peace.” Davis later reflected on these events and how they showed Franklin’s tremendous influence and commitment to social justice. She stated: “I believe that many people who may have been unlikely to associate themselves with me because of my communist affiliations probably joined the campaign as a result of Aretha’s statement. . . It was a moment in which the campaign for my freedom achieved a really populist status among people in this country, and probably throughout the world, as well. I will be forever grateful to Aretha, because I think she played such an integral role in—of the success of the campaign.”
Citations: Angela Davis, “Angela Davis: Aretha Franklin Offered to Post Bail for Me, Saying ‘Black People Will Be Free,’” Democracy Now!, August 17, 2018, https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/17/angela_davis_remembers_aretha_franklin_who; “Aretha Says She’ll Go Angela’s Bond If Permitted,” Jet, vol. 39, no. 9, December 3, 1970, 54, https://books.google.com/books?id=njcDAAAAMBAJ; “Aretha Franklin Performs at the 2009 Presidential Inauguration,” photograph (Washington, D.C., January 20, 2009), https://catalog.archives.gov/id/326769861.
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