Free Republic

The late Aretha Franklin’s family said Monday that it found an Atlanta pastor’s eulogy delivered at the Queen of Soul’s funeral last week to be offensive and distasteful. The eulogist, the Rev. Jasper Williams Jr., was criticized for a political address that described children being in a home without a father as “abortion after birth” and said black lives do not matter unless blacks stop killing each other. Franklin’s funeral was on Friday. “He spoke for 50 minutes and at no time did he properly eulogize her,” said Vaughn Franklin, the late singer’s nephew, who said he was delivering...

A fiery, old-school pastor who is under fire for saying black America is losing "its soul" at Aretha Franklin's funeral stands firm by his words with the hope critics can understand his perspective. Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. told The Associated Press in a phone interview Sunday he felt his sermon was appropriate at Franklin's funeral Friday in Detroit. He felt his timing was right, especially after other speakers spoke on the civil rights movement and President Donald Trump. "I was trying to show that the movement now is moving and should move in a different direction," he said. "......

A fiery, old-school eulogist at the funeral of Aretha Franklin fell flat for many in the crowd and prompted a social media uproar when he declared "black America has lost its soul," black women are incapable of raising sons alone and the Black Lives Matter movement is unfounded in the face of black-on-black crime. And that was just 26 minutes into the nearly 50 minutes of words provided by the Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. of Salem Baptist Church in Atlanta as Franklin's marathon funeral wound down Friday. Williams, who also eulogized Franklin's father, minister and civil rights activist C.L. Franklin,...