James Brown Laid Out in 24-Karat Gold Coffin
A showman even in death, James Brown drew thousands of fans to pay their final respects in the streets of Harlem and at a tribute inside New York City’s Apollo Theater on Wednesday.
The line to enter the Apollo, where the Rev. Al Sharpton was hosting the memorial, stretched across several city blocks. Among those hoping to gain entrance was actress Julia Stiles, who asked a police officer if she could skip the line – but he didn’t recognize her (another officer, who did know who she was, eventually let her in).
The Godfather of Soul’s 24-karat gold coffin was transported to the theater on a white carriage drawn by two white Percheron horses with feather-plumed headdresses as fans danced and sang to Brown’s music and chanted “Soul Power,” The New York Times reports.
When Brown’s body reached the Apollo, he was laid out in his open coffin dressed in a blue suit, white gloves and silver shoes. “We didn’t ask the big names to come today,” Sharpton told the crowd, the Associated Press reports. “This crowd didn’t come for anybody but James Brown.”
Sharpton continued, “This man stood for us, the common man. ? It was James Brown that with one song erased the word Negro from our vocabulary forever and made us say it and say it loud, that we were black and we were proud.
“He proved to us if you believe in God and you believe in yourself you can make it no matter what.”
Brown died on Christmas Day of congestive heart failure at age 73.