The Pulitzer Board announced Monday that it was honoring Aretha Franklin with a posthumous award, commemorating the Queen of Soul in the category of “special citations.”At an announcement ceremony at Columbia University, Pulitzer Prize administrator Dana Canedy specifically highlighted Franklin “for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades.”The Pulitzer Prize is yet another feather in Franklin’s cap. In 2005, President George W. Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Rolling Stone said Franklin had “America’s greatest voice” following her death in August 2018, and wrote about her ability to reach people. “This woman ain’t entertainment,” Luther Vandross, Franklin’s friend and producer, said in 1982, according to the publication. “She’s done opened the books to my life and told everybody.

Source: Huffington Post April 15, 2019 21:11 UTC