Wednesday, November 02, 2005
DETROIT - A church packed with 4,000 mourners celebrated the life of Rosa Parks Wednesday in an impassioned, song-filled funeral, with a crowd of notables giving thanks for the humble woman whose dignity and defiance helped transform a nation.
An American flag was unfolded onto the civil rights pioneer’s wooden coffin at the end of the service, which lasted more than seven hours.
The funeral, which stretched well past its three-hour scheduled time, followed a week of remembrances during which Parks’ coffin was brought from Detroit, where she died Oct. 24; to Montgomery, Ala., where she sparked the civil rights movement 50 years ago by refusing to give her bus seat to a white man; to Washington, where she became the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda.
Those in the audience held hands and sang the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” as family members filed past her casket before it was closed.
DETROIT - A church packed with 4,000 mourners celebrated the life of Rosa Parks Wednesday in an impassioned, song-filled funeral, with a crowd of notables giving thanks for the humble woman whose dignity and defiance helped transform a nation.
An American flag was unfolded onto the civil rights pioneer’s wooden coffin at the end of the service, which lasted more than seven hours.
The funeral, which stretched well past its three-hour scheduled time, followed a week of remembrances during which Parks’ coffin was brought from Detroit, where she died Oct. 24; to Montgomery, Ala., where she sparked the civil rights movement 50 years ago by refusing to give her bus seat to a white man; to Washington, where she became the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda.
Those in the audience held hands and sang the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” as family members filed past her casket before it was closed.
