The NAACP VANGUARD AWARD is presented to a person whose groundbreaking work increases our understanding and awareness of racial and social issues.

As a member of contemporary music's royal family, Aretha Franklin is peerless, the undisputed, reigning "Queen Of Soul." Seventeen-time GRAMMY® Award winner (second highest of any woman in history), GRAMMY Living Legend and Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the 2005 recipient of the Presidential Medal Of Freedom (America's highest honor), the Presidential Medal of Arts (1999), The Hollywood Walk of Fame (1979), multiple Image Award winner, and numerous Honorary Doctorate Degrees — her roll call of awards and accolades is endless.

As is widely known, Aretha Franklin — born in Memphis, reared in Buffalo but a longtime resident of Detroit — began her personal musical journey singing at her much-revered father Reverend C.L. Franklin's New Bethel Baptist Church at a very young age. While she was unquestionably influenced by the presence of such gospel luminaries as Clara Ward (a strong influence), Mahalia Jackson and the Reverend James Cleveland in the Franklin household, it was secular performers such as Dinah Washington and Sam Cooke (also visitors to the Franklin residence) who helped shape Aretha's wide-ranging interest in popular music.

Known around the world by her first name, Aretha has achieved global recognition on an unprecedented scale. She has influenced generations of singers from Janis Joplin and Chaka Khan, to Natalie Cole and Mary J. Blige, to American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino and Oscar-winning Jennifer Hudson. Aretha's ever-distinctive soulful, to-the-bone vocal style has graced the music charts for nearly five decades. While her live performances have touched the hearts of tens of millions since she began her musical journey as a gospel-singing child prodigy, it is her rich legacy of recordings that are a testament to the power, majesty and genius of this one-of-a-kind artist of the first order.

Aretha has always been an active participant in the struggle for human rights. In the 1960's and 1970's her soulful music served as the soundtrack for the civil rights and Black power movements. Defiant and proud, she marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and sang at his funeral.

Dozens of chart-topping records established Aretha as a cultural icon, with an astonishing eight consecutive Grammy Awards for Best R&B Vocal Female between 1967 and 1974 — a record that most likely will stand forever. Included in her litany of timeless classics are "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)," "Respect," "Baby I Love You," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Chain Of Fools," "Think," "Don't Play That Song," "Rock Steady," "Spanish Harlem," "Until You Come Back To Me," "Day Dreaming," "Jump To It," "Get It Right," "Freeway Of Love," "A Rose Is Still A Rose," and literally dozens of others from a list of more than 100 singles that have made the charts.

In 1999, Villard Books released her acclaimed autobiography ARETHA: FROM THESE ROOTS (co-authored with David Ritz). Plans are underway to include both a theatrical production and film based on her life story.

Inventive, innovative, always stretching her own artistic boundaries, we can be sure that when Aretha herself says she still has "so much more music to share," the best is yet to come from the one and only "Queen Of Soul."