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Mourners have began pouring into a museum in Detroit to pay their respects to the body of the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin.
The singer’s gold-plated open coffin was placed on display for hundreds of grief-stricken fans at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
Fans of the singer travelled from across the length and breadth of the US to see her lying in state, dressed in red from head to high-heeled shoes, legs crossed at the ankles.
Museum board member Kelly Major Green said the goal was to create a dignified and respectful environment akin to a church, the place where Franklin got her start.
“What we wanted to do is be reflective of the Queen,” Ms Green said. “It’s beautiful. She’s beautiful.”
Ms Green said Franklin’s attire and pose communicates both power and comfort, as she did in life.
The shoes, in particular, show “The Queen of Soul is diva to the end,” she said.
A woman grieves at the museum in Detroit where Aretha Franklin’s body is on display (EPA)
Tammy Gibson, 49, from Chicago said she arrived about 5:30 a.m. She came alone but made fast friends with others who sang and reminisced.
Outside the museum, she said: “I know people are sad, but it’s just celebrating – people dancing and singing her music.”
Her body is on display at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit (AP)
Paula Marie Seniors, an associate professor of Africana studies at Virginia Tech said it was a fitting tribute to the singer.
“I think it’s incredibly significant – she is being honored almost like a queen at one of the most important black museums in the United States,” she said.
She said the Queen of Soul was “a singer of the universe.” She added that Franklin, who died on August 16 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76, also was “so unapologetically black – she was so proud of being a black woman.”