Underway right now as friends and family members sharing powerful performances and stories as well. President s and pastors are fuelling the pews and all to pay their respect of the greater grace testimomple of detroit. Aretha franklin of in so many ways o f the sound track of the Civil Rights Movement. Smoky robinson says how he missed talking to his friend. A friend that he has known for 70 years. Here are some of the memories he shared. Today, lord, we thank you for the life and legacy of aretha Lewis Franklin, thank you forgiving us a precious gift, aretha. She was a treasure from a treasure and a treasure surrounded by treasures. She was classy enough to sing on the most prominent stages in the world but she was home girl to make potato salads and some frid fried chicken. I will be sending city council proposals to rename the park. Our beautiful, water front jewel will be Aretha Franklins park. When were formers from generations to come from around the world, theyll be reminded th
paved for them. aretha did what she did. it was all a lot of love. for those of you who did not grow up in a black baptist church like myself, this is something that we are going to be singing a lot of throughout the course of the next few hours at this worship service. for those of you who did not make it to church on sunday, fair enough, we got you covered here. you probably don t have to go this sunday as well. it really is and you stop to think about the icons and the legitimate. it is a term that we throw around a lot. you start to think of the legitimate musical icons left. we don t have a lot. no, we don t. i am glad to see this as a buoyant, upbeat celebration of her life. they are dancing and singing and testifying. yes. as you said, they re taking
ticket and everyone who took a picture of my aunt and who ever loved every last song she wrote. when i was born in 73. she was already the queen of soul. she won eight grammys and top ten hits on the top 100 but to me she was just my aunt. my father s sister and i was given the name crystal robin aretha. my aunt robin never let aretha forget that her name came first. aretha would laugh and say they save the best for last. to the world, she was known as the queen of soul but to me she was just my aunt. the one who gave birth to my first role my aunt to came to
that sort of thing. what s been most striking to you, mark, over the past few days and over this morning as we have all been watching folks pay their respects to senator mccain? well, i think it s been interesting, craig, to see this happen on the same day as we re seeing the memorial for aretha franklin. there seems when aretha franklin s niece gave her eulogy, she described her aunt as fierce and courageous. that describes both aretha franklin and john mccain. the other thing is r-e-s-p-e-c-t. aretha franklin sang it and john mccain embodied it. we are seeing the outpouring of suspect from john mccain s friends, many of whom were opponents earlier in his career. but john mccain also respected his adversaries. he respected his nation s institutions, our allies. he respected all americans.
the feet do get light. ron mott, you are still there with me outside the church? do i still have ron? reporter: i am still here. that s okay. one of the things that seems to get the most thunder applause so far this morning was the announcement that they are going to rename that park in detroit in aretha franklin s honor. walk us through why that is such a big deal? reporter: well, it is such a big deal, it is a beautiful park, number one. it is a little surprising to me that there is not a whole lot of aretha franklin in this town given how much time she spent in this town. that was a huge deal. this is the first big way to honor her in town. it would have been nice to made that honor while she was still with us but chain park is