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Barbara Vernice Siggers Franklin (born June 29, 1917 in Shelby, Mississippi) was mother of the legendary soul and gospel singer Aretha Franklin and wife of C. L. Franklin, the famous Black Baptist preacher. She married C. L. on June 3, 1936, and the marriage produced four children: Erma, Cecil, Aretha, and Carolyn. Before her marriage to C. L. Barbara had a son, Vaughn, by a previous relationship. Barbara was a pianist and, according to Mahalia Jackson, one of the finest singers in the country. A few years after Barbara and C. L. had moved to Detroit, marital trouble (probably stemming from C. L.'s infidelity: e.g., C. L. had fathered a child by one of his teenage congregants in Tennessee in 1940) caused Barbara to leave C. L. in 1948, and she moved to Buffalo, New York with her son, Vaughn.^[1] She returned to Detroit periodically to visit her children, and died in 1952 of heart trouble.

1. ^ Though it has been widely reported that Barbara Franklin 'deserted' her children, Aretha Franklin has vociferously disputed that rumor, and C. L. Franklin's biographer, Prof. Nick Salvatore of Cornell University, takes pains to discredit it. According to Professor Salvatore, Barbara Franklin made regular visits to Detroit to see her children, and during their summer vacations they travelled to Buffalo for extended stays with their mother.

• Salvatore, Nick, "Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America", Little Brown, 2005, Hardcover ISBN: 0-316-16037-7.
• Schwerin, Jules, "Got to Tell It: Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel", Oxford University Press, 1992, Paperback ISBN: 0-19-509050-0.