#arethafranklin

Early automatons in the US evolved from symbols of revolt into racialized figures tied to labor and the legacy of slavery: "How America Racialized the Robot" @jstordaily.bsky.social

(Plus- Respect)

This photo of the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin by Moneta Sleet, Jr. is my favorite image of her!Celebrating her b'earthday today (3.25.2026), listening to her music!

🖼✍️🏾 reposted from @nmaahc Born in Memphis, Tennessee, #OnThisDay [March 25] in 1942, #ArethaFranklin did not simply shape American music — she redefined it. There is American music before Aretha Franklin and after. Her voice, first lifted in gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit under the guidance of her father, Rev. C.L. Franklin, and became a new standard for vocal power and artistry that still echoes in singers today.

Franklin recorded songs that defined a cultural era: “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” “Think,” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”

She didn’t simply cross genres — she revealed how much of American popular music was already built on Black musical foundations. She earned 18 Grammy Awards, was the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1987), received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize special citation in 2019 “for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades.”

Franklin’s influence stretches beyond music, reaching even into the natural world. A lover of flowers, orchids especially, it is fitting that after her passing, a new purple-blue flowering hybrid orchid was named in her honor: Cattleya Rhythm and Blues ‘Aretha Franklin.’

Learn more about orchids in the exhibition More Than a Flower: The Connective Power of Orchids on view @NMAAHC through April 26. For 30 years, @SmithsonianGardens and the @usbotanicgarden have collaborated on an annual orchid exhibition utilizing their significant orchid collections.

#SmithsonianWHM #WomensHistoryMonth

📸 1. Aretha Franklin by Moneta Sleet, Jr. Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Made possible by the Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution. 2. Cattleya Rhythm and Blues 'Aretha Franklin'. Photographed by: Hannele Lahti. Smithsonian Gardens Orchid Collection.

🎥 3. More than a Flower: The Connective Power of Orchids exhibition @NMAAHC