Born: March 25, 1942, Memphis, TN

Education: Public high school, Detroit, MI

Franklin's soulful singing began in the choir at New Bethel Baptist Church (Detroit). Her father was the pastor and her mother, a gospel singer. Gospel and popular singers Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke were her mentors. She recorded Precious Lord (1956) but left the church at age eighteen for a career in pop music.

She succeeded. Her first album, I Never Loved a Man, topped the billboard charts, sold a million copies, and had two number-one hit singles, “I Never” and “Respect.” Singing about love, sex, pain, pride, and dignity in an emotional and gospel-inflected voice, she became the top soul vocalist of the civil rights–Black Power years. With four other million-sellers between 1967 and 1969, while earning four Grammy Awards, she became the “Queen of Soul.” Even as “Respect” expressed women's and black liberation, Aretha also sang to collective hope for nonviolence, racial integration, and equality of opportunity, particularly during the nationally televised funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. Helping to generate equal opportunities and outcomes for others, she gives generously to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, sickle cell anemia research, the NAACP, and United Negro College Fund, among many recipients of her philanthropy.