The author and sociologist Michael Eric Dyson, who attended the funeral, said outside that Ms. Franklin’s connection to people was built on more than that fabulous voice. “She represented a soul music tradition,” he said, “that really dug deep into the roots of gospel to tell the world the agonies, the ecstasies, the joy, the griefs of what it meant to be a woman, a black woman, a woman struggling for self-definition and humanity in a culture that refused to acknowledge our existence.”

[Listen to 20 essential Aretha Franklin songs.]

Born in Memphis in 1942, Ms. Franklin moved to Detroit as a young girl, and by her teenage years had a budding career as a gospel singer. With her father a celebrity preacher, their home was visited by black luminaries like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.

Ms. Franklin, following the path of Sam Cooke, soon made her way to pop. But it was not until 1967, with her first recordings on the Atlantic label — including smoldering songs like “Respect” and “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” — that she took on her full role as a cultural giant, adored not simply as a supreme vocal talent but also as a symbol of civil rights and women’s empowerment.

“She was born in Memphis, Tenn., on the Mississippi River, and she understood the pain of segregation and rejection,” Mr. Jackson, a longtime friend, said in an interview in advance of the service. “Her gift was a spirit that penetrated, from ‘Ave Maria’ to ‘I Never Loved a Man’ to ‘Respect.’”