After Pomp and Emotion of Franklin and McCain Funerals, a Lingering Question
For CNN, Kate Maltby writes, “Is it possible for the funeral of any great activist to reach across the aisle, and yet stake out a clear political legacy to its mourners?” Maltby compares the funerals of John McCain and Aretha Franklin, both of which included political resistance. She writes, “If McCain’s service was bipartisan, Franklin’s was explicitly Democratic. Regretting that ‘we’ lost Michigan by 11,000 votes in 2016, the Rev. Jesse Jackson lamented that the unregistered voters in black-majority Detroit could have swung the state.”