The homecoming celebration of Frankie Muse Freeman on Saturday, January 20 was held at Washington Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church, just blocks away from where hundreds of women were preparing to march against a patriarchal status quo. They marched for wage parity, respect and an end to sexual harassment and exploitation.
It was a fitting coincidence. Freeman – who passed Friday, January 12 at age 101 – had been a determined, lifelong foe of sexism and racism.
“There has been gender discrimination from the beginning of the world,” Freeman once said. “The point is that you have to combat it. But you have to combat it consistently.”
As Rabbi Emeritus Howard Kaplansky said during the homecoming service, Freeman was “challenged with hate. But there were so many ground-breaking accomplishments and world-changing achievements through her journey.”
Kaplansky’s theme had been sounded in the tributes paid during a ceremony at the Missouri History Museum, where her body lay in repose in the Grand Hall on Friday evening.
“Because Frankie Freeman lived a meaningful life, African Americans and marginalized people in America are able to be included in fair housing, education, boardrooms, and the like,” said St. Louis Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards.
As she addressed the church congregation packed with about a thousand mourners, Freeman’s daughter, Shelbe Freeman Bullock, remembered a beloved mother, more than an historic change agent.
“To me, she is mom, my mother,” Bullock said. “And I want to tell you a little about her – not the professional side, but the personal side. She was warm, loving, caring, generous, tenacious and funny, and often irreverent.”
Michael McMillan, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, drew laughs when he apologized for being a contributing factor to the arrival of four stuffed Cunningham Funeral Home flower cars, when the family had requested donations to Howard University or the Washington Tabernacle Nance Scholarship Fund. McMillian, however, announced that he had established an Urban League scholarship program in Freeman’s name, along with an internship program, in partnership with the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and named a portion of the league’s headquarters in her honor.
“Frankie played a tremendous role in the history of the Urban League,” McMillan said.
James H. Buford, who was president of the local Urban League affiliate when Freeman served as board chair, said she “was holistic in her approach to racial inequality. She could do it all – a lawyer, educator in the sense of training people on how to deal with race, and social issues.”
Freeman’s beloved Deltas – she was the sorority’s 14th national president – were represented by Cynthia Butler-McIntyre, 24th national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
“If you knew Frankie, you laughed,” Butler-McIntyre said.
She told a long story about taking Freeman to the White House to meet then-U.S. President Barack Obama. She told how Freeman stared her down to exclude her from the photo so she could pose alone with Obama.
Lillian Parks represented The Links. She talked about how Freeman – a founding member of the Gateway Chapter some 30 years ago – was focused on the service program of the group, especially when she became the local president. Parks said that Freeman epitomized 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
Her homegoing was often punctuated with laughter and the syncopated rhythm of jazz and gospel music, evoking the “Frankie” many knew. She was a devoted fan of the arts, played the piano, had enough jazz and gospel albums to rival a professional collector, and wasn’t shy about taking to the dance floor.
It was a musical service, led by Dello Thedford on piano and Charles Creath on organ and fronted by a series of vocalists, including Denise Thimes, Karen Hylton and Freeman’s adult nephew Edward R. Muse. “Lift Ev’ry Voice” was never sung so masterfully before baritone Jermaine Smith mounted the pulpit, and dramatic soprano Brenda Jackson received one of several standing ovations for her rendition of “The Lord’s Prayer.”
“Many of you knew her as the drum major for social justice, civil rights and women’s rights,” said Ron Himes, founder of the Black Rep, “but we knew her as a lover and patron and champion for the arts. She loved the arts, she loved the Black Rep. She gave her time, advice and financial support to make sure we could do our work.”
Himes announced that the Black Rep had established the Frankie Freeman Spirit Awards and the Frankie Freeman Giving Guild.
During his thunderous eulogy, Rev. Donnie Robinson Sr. of Washington Tabernacle said that Freeman was “pre-destined” by God to become a lawyer.
“Every time she walked into a court, she had to take the captain of her soul with her,” Robinson said. “Today, we can say to Sister Frankie Freeman that the case is closed, and the verdict is well done.”
As the procession left for Calvary Cemetery, the Bosman Twins performed a swinging rendition of “Just A Closer Walk with Thee.”
After the family left the church, they stopped at the recently installed bronze statue of Freeman in Kiener Plaza to plant several bouquets, then drove by the namesake Frankie Freeman Ville Estates in North City, and then back to the Central West End, where Freeman had lived for more than 50 years.
Mayor Lyda Krewson, who was a neighbor and the alderwoman during Freeman’s Central West End residency; County Executive Steve Stenger; Dr. William Danforth, chancellor emeritus of Washington University; Adolphus Pruitt, NAACP St. Louis City Branch president; granddaughter Nichole Fordson; and Carolyn Thomas, a friend, also spoke at the service.
Former Missouri Gov. Bob Holden and U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay, who flew in from Washington, D.C., that morning, also were in attendance. U.S. Senate Claire McCaskill was detained with the U.S. Senate’s deliberations in Washington, D.C., but sent a statement that was read by Washington Tabernacle’s Pastor Rob Mclish.
“She was reared in the Jim Crow-era South when racial segregation was legal, and she witnessed first-hand the harsh consequences of racial inequality,” McCaskill wrote of Freeman. “From these beginnings, Frankie chose to devote her entire career to ending that injustice.”
The family has requested that donations should be made in the name of Attorney Frankie Muse Freeman, c/o Washington Tabernacle Nance Scholarship fund, 3200 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63103 or Howard University, 2400 Sixth Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20059.
The author Gentry W. Trotter was considered a godson by Frankie M. Freeman, who bequeathed him her collection of jazz and gospel music when she moved out of her Central West End home.
