Washington – Thousands of Americans – black and white, old and young – gathered at the U.S. Capitol on Sunday to pay tribute to Rosa Parks, the Alabama woman whose simple act of defiance helped spark the civil rights movement.
It was the first time a woman had lain in honor beneath the rotunda of the United States Capitol, and it was all the more impressive because Parks never held high government office. Yet she may have done more to change America than many of the 30 others, all men, who had been so honored on 28 occasions before her.
“That a black woman, a descendant of slaves, should be the first (woman) to lie in the U.S. Capitol, there’s justice in the universe,” said Efia Nwangaza, 58, a lawyer from Greenville, S.C., who drove eight hours with two friends to be among the first in line to view Parks.
Parks died Oct. 24 at her Detroit home. She was 92.
Parks was arrested by Montgomery, Ala., police Dec. 1, 1955, after she refused to get up from her bus seat so a white man could have it. In response, a young local pastor, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., helped form the Montgomery Improvement Association, which called for a boycott of the bus company. The boycott lasted 381 days and helped galvanize the civil rights movement.
Jerry Long, 60 and a resident of Arlington, Va., remembered the boycott when he was a boy of 10 living in Montgomery.
“We saw the black workers walking to work, rain, sleet and shine,” he said. “My parents made sure I learned the lesson: that one person can make a difference.”
A team of eight military pallbearers carried Parks’ casket into the Capitol as the choir of Baltimore’s Morgan State University sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” beginning softly and building to a booming crescendo.
President Bush and first lady Laura Bush laid a wreath of red and white carnations alongside the gleaming wooden casket. Leaders of Congress placed similar wreaths.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid tribute at a service in Montgomery earlier Sunday.
Rice said she and others who grew up in Alabama during the height of Parks’ activism might not have realized 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.”
The only public remarks came from three clergymen, who offered prayers and eulogies in a 20-minute ceremony.
The doors of the Capitol were opened to thousands shortly after 8:30 p.m., an hour and a half later than officials had planned. But the crowd, which stretched down the National Mall for blocks, waited patiently and quietly.
There were nearly as many white faces as black ones. Many said they had come by plane or had driven all night by car. Fittingly, many came by bus, and hundreds of parents brought their children.
Nwangaza recalled the emotions she had felt as a girl in Norfolk, Va., as the bus boycott wore on.
“We kept a record of how many days,” she said. “It was tremendous excitement: If they can do it, we can do it.”
Others remembered Parks as a symbol of something larger. Annie Smith of Baltimore arrived outside the Capitol at 10 a.m. to be the first in line. She said viewing Parks was “a way to pay tribute to everyone who worked in the civil rights movement.”
Parks’ body was flown to Washington, then borne to the Capitol with a 1957 bus trailing the hearse.
Officials said the Capitol would remain open until midnight to allow people to file by but that no one would be turned away.
Viewing was also scheduled for 7 to 10 a.m. today, followed by a service at a Washington church before the body was to be flown to Detroit for burial Wednesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
