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President Bush pauses to pay tribute to Rosa Parks at the U.S. Capitol on Sunday. Bush is expected to speak at a memorial service for Parks today, which is also expected to have celebrities and dignitaries in attendance.Rosa Parks: Final journey
D.C. honors civil rights icon
Nation pays homage to activist who changed history
Thelma Mosley holds a portrait of Rosa Parks in the shadow of the Capitol as she waits to pay respects to the civil rights hero.May 17, 1954: The U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
Nov. 13, 1956: Supreme Court declares segregation on municipal buses unconstitutional. The ruling stems from Rosa Parks' refusal in 1955 to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white passenger.
July 2, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation because of race, color, religion, or national origin.
Aug. 6, 1965: President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Acts of 1965, making it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. The act outlawed literacy tests, poll taxes and other requirements that were used to restrict blacks from voting.
April 20, 1968: President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing.
March 22, 1988: Congress passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act over President Reagan's veto. This act expanded the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds.
Compiled by Detroit News researcher Zena Simmons
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A girl looks up at the murals on the Capitol Rotunda's ceiling during the public viewing of Rosa Parks' body.
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WASHINGTON -- Rosa Parks returned Sunday to the nation's capital, where the movement she helped spark reached its greatest fulfillment through legislation and court decisions that pushed the country toward greater equality.
The former seamstress, who died in Detroit last Monday, was awarded a rare privilege: to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol, the domed building that is a symbol of American democracy and freedom.
President Bush, legislative leaders and other dignitaries paid their respects at a short ceremony before the public was allowed in to file past her casket in the building's Rotunda, the breathtaking circular hall that sits below the dome. It is flanked by art depicting some of America's greatest historical symbols, including a statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the minister that Parks called on for help when she was jailed for refusing to give up her seat on the bus.
The Morgan State University choir sang "Battle Hymn of the Republic" as Parks' coffin was carried in by members of the National Guard wearing white gloves. Three separate wreaths were presented at her side, from senators, then House members, and finally Bush and his wife, Laura.
Three ministers spoke of the significant moment in history.
"Her courageous spirit aroused our national conscience," said the Rev. Barry Black, chaplain of the U.S. Senate. "May her noble spirit remind us of the power of faithful, small acts."
Later, the thousands of people in line began to file past and said it had been worth the wait all afternoon.
"I felt I had to be here," said Olivia Randolph, 53, of Richmond, Va. "I wanted to honor her and thank her."
Naimah Tucker, 16, of New Jersey, who was among three generations of her family to make the trip, said she was trying to absorb every moment.
"It's a bittersweet day, sad because she passed, but happy to be here, watching history in the making. It's beautiful," Tucker said. "It's very monumental and it's an honor."
U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, said the bipartisan support to have Parks on display in the Capitol was proof that she transcended the civil rights movement and showed a change in attitude of government leaders.
Eleice Latham arrived at the Capitol even before a line had begun to form early Sunday to pay respects to Parks, who was 92. Latham and her three sisters, born in Alabama like Parks, had taken an overnight train from Boston, where they now live, so they could attend the ceremony in recognition of her contribution to their lives.
The women said it was appropriate that Parks was brought to the nation's capital.
"They make all the laws. That was the reason for the civil rights movement," Latham said. "She was one of the reasons the civil rights laws were passed."
"She's done so much to pave the way for everybody," said her sister, Josephine Mullins.
Former Detroiter Linda Frances said she took a bus from New York to see the woman she respected from childhood.
"She was so inspirational. She seemed like everybody's grandma. She seemed so humble and so sweet," Frances said.
Peg Osborne, 62, a high school principal from Pennsylvania, said Parks was "the greatest woman in American history."
"She changed our world. I am here to thank her."
Seventy-five-year-old Rosa Akidil of New York, who gripped a cane and sat in a chair in line, said this was an important historical event that should be widely marked.
"She is someone whose strength and determination needs to be modeled. She didn't know what would happen to her if she didn't get up," she said. "It opened up a lot of opportunity, rights, activity for a lot of people."
The Washington tribute followed one in Montgomery, Ala., where Parks lived 50 years ago when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at a memorial service at St. Paul AME Church, said Parks' defiance "set a revolution that made America face up to its birth defects."
"Without Rosa Parks, I would not be standing here today as secretary of state," Rice, also an Alabama native, said at the Montgomery church where Parks used to worship.
The 2 1/2 -hour service also featured speeches and remembrances from the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton; Alabama Gov. Robert Riley; NAACP President Bruce Gordon; Martin Luther King III; radio personality and author Tavis Smiley; and actress Cicely Tyson, who portrayed Parks' mother in "The Rosa Parks Story."
Jackson, Sharpton and other speakers reminded the crowd that much work remains toward racial equity. Other speakers urged Congress to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act, some of the provisions of which are due to expire.
"To call her a seamstress is irrelevant," Jackson said. "She was not arrested for sewing. She was a freedom fighter."
Parks' decision to be jailed rather than give up her seat prompted her to call a young minister, Dr. King, who led a bus boycott that lasted more than a year and a movement that reverberates still today.
By the time the civil rights movement reached Washington, the city had been dealing with efforts to desegregate for many years, with lunch counter protests and struggles to bring equality to the work force and schools, said Melinda Chateauvert, assistant professor of African-American studies at the University of Maryland.
Decisions in the Supreme Court and the White House, as well as eventual efforts by Congress to pass civil rights and voting rights legislation, had to pass in order to make what Parks stood for become meaningful.
"The three branches of government all had to work together to get civil rights recognized, and they still have to work together," Chateauvert said.
King's "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial was at the third large march for access and equality in Washington, she said.
The Million Man March and the rallies surrounding the University of Michigan affirmative action case before the Supreme Court are more recent examples of how Washington often serves as the backdrop for equal rights movements in America.
Chateauvert said she thought it was especially significant that Parks be eulogized on Capitol Hill because she was a congressional aide to Conyers for years.
"That kind of democratic participation, making sure people got a voice, that to me is a very important recognition," she said.
Conyers, who hired Parks to work in his Detroit office, said her place in history shouldn't be considered the passive act of a tired seamstress, but rather a purposeful act of defiance from a fierce opponent of segregation.
"She could not have suspected that deep opposition would lead her to be the main participant in a federal case that went up to the U.S. Supreme Court and dealt the death blow not only to segregation of the bus system in Montgomery, but dealt the death blow to segregated systems that existed elsewhere in the United States," Conyers said Friday in discussing the resolution to open the Capitol to her remains.
"That and the Brown v. Board of Education case a year earlier were the death knell.
"She was an activist. She was not a person hoping something good would happen; she was always the first person to join."
Even in death, the soft-spoken, petite Parks was still breaking through barriers. By lying in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, she became the first woman to do so and only the second black person.
Southwest Airlines said the man who flew her remains from Detroit to Montgomery, Ala., and to Washington on Sunday, and then back to Detroit today, was the first black chief pilot for a commercial airline, Lou Freeman.
After her flight arrived at a nearby airport, Parks' remains were transported to the Capitol as part of a motorcade that included antique buses carrying Parks' relatives, friends and other dignitaries. Prayer and a wreath-laying ceremony were planned before the public could file past her casket.
Today, more than 30,000 people streamed through the Capitol Rotunda for another public viewing, followed by a church service that was to include remarks from talk show host Oprah Winfrey and several dignitaries.
In life, Parks illuminated the flaws in enforcing the nation's Bill of Rights, and in death, she was honored in the building where laws are supposed to be passed and perfected.
"She extended those principles of the founding fathers in a way that applies to all of us," said Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. "The role Rosa Parks played in our democracy for some people, for all people, is as profound, as important as the role the founding fathers played when they articulated a set of principles.
"Principles don't mean anything unless they apply to all citizens of this country."
Melba Boyd, chairwoman of the Department of Africana Studies at Wayne State University, said Parks is not only a national icon, but a human incarnation of what the Statue of Liberty is supposed to symbolize.
"She's one of those profound persons who has managed to not only change the nation but also change the character of the way we think of democracy," Boyd said.
"That she's not someone engaged in electoral politics in a significant way demonstrates that it has to come from a place much deeper than persons who deal with the processes or the pretense of nationhood, rather from someone who actually put her life out there, and did it with such dignity and did it in a way that was so uncharacteristic of a country that has to make a statement about violence and liberation."
U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Detroit, said the self-respect that Parks showed was a lesson for all Americans.
"When you respect yourself, you walk a little different, you don't stand for injustice, you speak out and build a better family, a better community, and yes, a better country," Kilpatrick said.
U.S. Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Grand Rapids, said Parks' placement in the Capitol was fitting.
"She is a remarkable person, and her courage and tenacity sparked the civil rights movement, and led to the reversal of some very suppressive laws in this country and brought this nation to its feet in favor of all civil rights for all individuals no matter their race, gender or color."
Joel Kurth contributed to this report. You can reach Lisa Zagaroli at (202) 662-8738 or lzagaroli@detnews.com.
Crowds flow into the rotunda to view the coffin of Rosa Parks. She became the first woman and only the second black person to lie in honor at the Capitol. "It's a bittersweet day, sad because she passed, but happy to be here, watching history in the making," says Naimah Tucker, 16.
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