Aretha Franklin—Musical Genius, Truth Teller, Freedom Fighter | The Nation

 
 

 ""At the height of her fame in 1970, Franklin supported philosopher and revolutionary Angela Davis, a member of the Communist Party who had been accused of purchasing firearms used in the takeover of a court room in Marin County, California, and who was charged with conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder. Franklin told Jet magazine that she wanted to post Davis’s bond, “whether it’s $100,000 or $250,000.” Franklin’s father, himself a longtime civil-rights advocate, a confidante and surrogate for Martin Luther King Jr., discouraged her from doing so. Franklin asserted, “Well, I respect him, of course, but I’m going to stick by my beliefs. Angela Davis must go free. Black people will be free.”

She explained that her support for Davis had nothing to do with Communism, “but because she’s a black woman and she wants freedom for black people.” Franklin noted that she had the money to post bond because she’d earned it from black people. She therefore wanted to use it “in ways that will help our people.”

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Aretha Franklin—Musical Genius, Truth Teller, Freedom Fighter | The Nation: Angela Davis, whose bond Franklin offered to post in 1970, says that the singer’s work “helped to shape and deepen a collective consciousness anchored in a yearning for freedom.”