Mourners pay their respects to the late civil rights icon Rosa Parks as she lies in honour in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, a tribute usually reserved for presidents, soldiers and politicians, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sunday. Parks, who helped spark the U.S. civil rights movement when she refused to give her seat on an Alabama bus to a white man 50 years ago, died on October 24 at the age of 92. - REUTERS
WASHINGTON (AP):
MORE THAN 30,000 Americans streamed through the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to pay tribute yesterday to Rosa Parks, filing by her casket in hushed awe of the woman whose defiant act on a city bus inspired the modern civil rights movement.
"I rejoice that my country recognises that this woman changed the course of American history, that this woman became a cure for the cancer of segregation," said the Rev. Vernon Shannon, 68, pastor of John Wesley African-Methodist-Episcopal Zion in Washington, one of many who rose before dawn to see the casket.
Elderly women carrying purses, young couples holding hands and small children in the arms of their parents reverently proceeded around the raised wooden casket. A Capitol Police spokeswoman, Sgt. Jessica Gissubel, said more than 30,000 passed through the Rotunda since Sunday evening, when the viewing began.
Many were overcome by emotion. Monica Grady, 47, of Greenbelt, Maryland, was moved to tears, she said, that Parks was "so brave at the time without really knowing the consequences" of her actions.
Bathed in a spotlight, Parks' casket stood in the centre of a Rotunda that includes a bronze bust of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who led the 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system that helped initiate the modern civil rights movement.
BRIEF CEREMONY
Parks, a former seamstress, became the first woman to lie in honour in the Rotunda, sharing the tribute bestowed upon Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and other national leaders. President George W. Bush and con-gressional leaders gathered for a brief ceremony Sunday night, listening as a choir sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Parks, who died last Monday at 92, was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, an incident that inspired King and helped touch off the civil rights movement.
Rep. John Conyers, a Michi-gan Democrat in whose Detroit congressional office Parks worked for years, said the ceremony and public viewing showed "the legacy of Rosa Parks is more than just a success for the civil rights movement or for African-Americans. It means it's a national honour."
People began gathering outside the Capitol before noon Sunday and the line of well-wishers and mourners slowly pushed along into the early morning hours Monday.
Parks also was being remembered Monday at a memorial service at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Washington and would then lie in repose at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit.
At the Capitol ceremony Sunday, Senate chaplain Barry Black said Parks' courage "ignited a movement that aroused our national conscience" and served as an example of the "power of fateful, small acts."
Bush, who presented a wreath but did not speak at the ceremony, issued a proclamation ordering the U.S. flag to be flown at half-staff over all public buildings Wednesday, the day of Parks' funeral and burial in Detroit.
The president and first lady Laura Bush were joined by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and other members of Congress.
Among those paying respect was Ann Durr Lyon, 78, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, whose parents, Virginia and Clifford Durr, helped bail out Parks following her arrest. Lyon carried with her a typewritten tribute to the civil rights pioneer, noting her mother "is in heaven waiting for her friend. Mrs. Parks will light up God's heaven _ FREE AT LAST!"
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid tribute to Parks at a service in Montgomery, Alabama, earlier Sunday. She said she and others who grew up in Alabama during the height of Parks' activism might not have realised her impact on their lives, "but I can honestly say that without Mrs. Parks, I probably would not be standing here today as secretary of state."
