Washington – Linking hands and singing “We Shall Overcome,” old friends and Washington’s establishment remembered Rosa Parks on Monday as a quiet, gentle woman whose courage in the face of segregation inspired generations.
An overflow church crowd paid tribute to the woman whose refusal to give her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., bus 50 years ago helped galvanize the civil rights movement. Parks died Oct. 24 at 92.
The two-day farewell and “homegoing” in Washington also attracted tens of thousands who stood for hours for a glimpse of Parks’ mahogany coffin in the Capitol Rotunda.
In a three-hour memorial service at historic Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, Parks was celebrated by political, religious and civil rights leaders and other luminaries who spoke of the example she set.
“I would not be standing here today, nor standing where I stand every day, had she not chosen to sit down,” said talk show host Oprah Winfrey. “I know that.”
Winfrey, born in Mississippi during segregation, said Parks’ stand “changed the trajectory of my life and the lives of so many other people in the world.”
After the service, Parks’ casket was flown to Detroit for a viewing late Monday. Former President Clinton and singer Aretha Franklin are expected to attend her funeral there Wednesday.
