4,000 honor Rosa Parks at Detroit service

DETROIT — In a seven-hour funeral filled with song and impassioned eulogies, thousands of mourners crowded into Greater Grace Temple on Wednesday to pay final respects to Rosa Parks, whose act of defiance helped spark the civil-rights movement.

As 4,000 attendees sat in wooden pews, politicians and religious leaders used the pulpit to warn that the rights that Parks fought for are far from secure.

The public must "vote in every election" to protect such things as affirmative action, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., told the crowd. "This must be a time of challenge and a call to action."

Parks, 92, died in Detroit on Oct. 24. Her body was displayed in her native Montgomery, Ala. She then became the first woman and second black to lie in honor under the Capitol dome in Washington, D.C.

A delegation of about 100 congressional representatives came to Parks' adopted home town, joining singer Aretha Franklin, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, former President Clinton and hundreds of other prominent people.

On Dec. 1, 1955, Parks was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man.

At her court hearing, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the injustice, leading to a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system that became a catalyst for nonviolent protests across the country.

Again and again Wednesday, Parks was described as the mother of the civil-rights movement, a peaceful woman who spent the majority of her life fighting for racial equality.

"Mother Parks, take your rest. You have certainly earned it," said Bishop Charles Ellis III, who led the service.

Hundreds spent Tuesday night on sidewalks, determined to nab one of 2,800 spots set aside for the public.

Throughout the day, mourners both famous and little-known stood on the stage and gazed down upon the closed, dark-brown casket. Hour after hour — as gospel choirs sang and the crowd roared with "Amens!" — speakers shared how an act of defiance had an effect on their lives.

"It's a given that I would not be here today were it not for this small woman who lies here," said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. People honor Parks and other civil-rights leaders "not by words, but by committing ourselves to carry on their struggle one solitary act at a time."

After the service, Parks' casket was placed in a glass-enclosed carriage drawn by white horses to be taken through the streets of Detroit and to a mausoleum, where she will be entombed alongside her husband and mother.