The FBI kept an eye on the self-styled “Queen of the Soul” as she searched for Franklin’s connections with civil rights activists, Communists and “black extremists.”
David Redfern / RedfernsAretha Franklin performs in London in the 1980s.
Shortly after Aretha Franklin’s death in 2018, rolling stone filed a Freedom of Information Act to obtain all documents concerning her from the FBI. Franklin’s dossier has now been released, offering a jaw-dropping, in-depth look at how the organization has tracked down the “Queen of the Soul” for 40 years.
How rolling stone reports, the FBI kept an eye on Franklin between 1967 and 2007. Using surveillance techniques such as fake phone calls and high-level sources, they monitored his involvement in the American civil rights movement and his relationships with figures of prominent as Martin Luther King Jr.
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“From 1967 and 1968 until the early 1970s, the FBI kept files on nearly every major figure of color and especially anyone who appeared or was suspected of being involved in civil rights or politics. Black woman.” , Beverly Gage, said Yale History and American Studies professor who wrote a book about FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover The New York Times.
Anthony Barboza / Getty ImagesAretha Franklin (center) with her father, Clarence L. Franklin, and sister, Erma Franklin. Clarence Franklin was a pastor and civil rights activist who, like Aretha, was close to Martin Luther King Jr.
They investigated whether Franklin, who rose to fame with hits like “Respect”, “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” and “Think”, had any affiliation with “extremist” groups. The New York Times reports that the singer’s name has appeared in documents on “possible racial violence”, “Communist infiltration” of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and an “extremist affair” involving the Black Panthers.
rolling stone He also reports that his 270-page dossier is full of words like “black extremist”, “pro-communist”, “hate America”, “radical”, “racial violence” and “militant black power”. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, for example, the FBI thought that the deceased civil rights leader’s funeral plans involving Franklin could become a “racial situation.”
“Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin … some of this group have supported the concept of militant black power,” the FBI document states, noting that their performance at a memorial to the king could “provide [an] emotional spark that could trigger racial unrest in this area.
Ultimately, the FBI has never found any evidence linking Franklin to “extremist” or “radical” organizations. And it’s not entirely clear that Franklin knew the FBI was monitoring his contacts and monitoring his every move.
Bettmann / Getty ImagesAretha Franklin in 1960. The FBI monitored her movements from 1967 to 2007.
“I don’t really know if my mom knew she was being targeted by the FBI and being followed,” said Franklin’s son Kecalf. rolling stone. “I know you had absolutely nothing to hide.”
That said, Franklin has occasionally interacted with the FBI. Part of her FBI file about her relates to threats received by the singer, including extortion attempts and letters threatening to kill her family. The New York Times reports that an FBI agent even visited Franklin at his home in 1974 to discuss a death threat, but Franklin refused to read the letter.
Her filing notes that the singer said “the whole thing scared her and she didn’t want to know about it or what was in the letter”.
How rolling stone notes, Franklin was one of many artists – both black and white – who had FBI files. Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Whitney Houston and the Notorious BIG have all been closely followed by the FBI.
“This is what they were doing then,” Kenneth O’Reilly, history professor at the University of Alaska at Anchorage and author of Race Issues: The FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972 Said The New York Times. “If you were famous, they had a file on you, especially if you were African American.”
For Aretha Franklin’s family, however, there is some satisfaction in seeing that, despite the FBI’s best efforts, Franklin has never been linked to any wrongdoing.
“It kind of makes me feel that the FBI has targeted her and wanted to know her every move,” said Kecalf Franklin. rolling stone. “But at the same time, knowing my mother and the way she handled her affairs, I know she had nothing to hide, so they wouldn’t find anything and they were wasting their time. As you can see … they didn’t find nothing.
After reading how the FBI tracked down Aretha Franklin, see how the FBI secretly registered Martin Luther King Jr., or check out these powerful photos of the civil rights movement.
