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Thousands to Honor Rosa Parks at Funeral By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer
34 minutes ago
Thousands of people prepared to honor Rosa Parks at her funeral Wednesday, after at least 60,000 paid tribute to the civil rights pioneer in her native state of Alabama, the nation's capital and her adopted city of Detroit.
A white hearse carrying Parks' body traveled early Wednesday from the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History where viewing lasted until the pre-dawn hours to the church where her funeral was to be held later in the morning.
Dozens of people holding pictures of Parks crowded around the hearse and shouted "We love you" as it began moving.
Claudette Bond, 62, of Southfield, was the first person in line outside the glass doors of Greater Grace Temple, waiting since 6 p.m. Tuesday for one of 2,000 public seats for Parks' funeral. She'd spent the night in a lawn chair even when the temperature dipped below 40 degrees.
By 7:30 a.m., the line for the funeral extended more than two blocks west of the church with about 800 people waiting.
"This will never happen again. There will never be another Rosa Parks," said Moses Fisher, a Detroit native and Nashville, Tenn., resident who was one of the hundreds in line hoping to get a seat in the church.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson was to deliver Parks' eulogy. Among those planning to attend the service were former President Clinton, his wife, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, civil rights leaders and other dignitaries. Aretha Franklin was to sing.
The church holds 4,000 people, even more than the Washington church where President Bush and wife Laura attended Parks' memorial service.
Parks was 92 when she died Oct. 24 in Detroit. Nearly 50 years earlier, she was a 42-year-old tailor's assistant at a department store in Montgomery, Ala., when she was arrested and fined $10 plus $4 in court costs for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery city bus. Her action on Dec. 1, 1955, triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in December 1956 that segregated seats on city buses were unconstitutional, giving momentum to the battle against laws that separated the races in public accommodations and businesses throughout the South.
But Parks and her husband Raymond were exposed to harassment and death threats in Montgomery, where they also lost their jobs. They moved to Detroit with Rosa Parks' mother, Leona McCauley, in 1957.
Parks held a series of low-paying jobs before U.S. Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) hired her in 1965 to work in his Detroit office. She remained there until 1987.
Parks was initially going to be buried a family plot in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery, next to her husband and mother. But Swanson Funeral Home officials confirmed Tuesday that Parks would be entombed in a mausoleum at the cemetery and the bodies of her husband and mother also would be moved there.
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Associated Press Writers Tom Krisher, David N. Goodman and Bree Fowler contributed to this report.
Thousands to Honor Rosa Parks at Funeral By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer
34 minutes ago
Thousands of people prepared to honor Rosa Parks at her funeral Wednesday, after at least 60,000 paid tribute to the civil rights pioneer in her native state of Alabama, the nation's capital and her adopted city of Detroit.
A white hearse carrying Parks' body traveled early Wednesday from the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History where viewing lasted until the pre-dawn hours to the church where her funeral was to be held later in the morning.
Dozens of people holding pictures of Parks crowded around the hearse and shouted "We love you" as it began moving.
Claudette Bond, 62, of Southfield, was the first person in line outside the glass doors of Greater Grace Temple, waiting since 6 p.m. Tuesday for one of 2,000 public seats for Parks' funeral. She'd spent the night in a lawn chair even when the temperature dipped below 40 degrees.
By 7:30 a.m., the line for the funeral extended more than two blocks west of the church with about 800 people waiting.
"This will never happen again. There will never be another Rosa Parks," said Moses Fisher, a Detroit native and Nashville, Tenn., resident who was one of the hundreds in line hoping to get a seat in the church.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson was to deliver Parks' eulogy. Among those planning to attend the service were former President Clinton, his wife, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, civil rights leaders and other dignitaries. Aretha Franklin was to sing.
The church holds 4,000 people, even more than the Washington church where President Bush and wife Laura attended Parks' memorial service.
Parks was 92 when she died Oct. 24 in Detroit. Nearly 50 years earlier, she was a 42-year-old tailor's assistant at a department store in Montgomery, Ala., when she was arrested and fined $10 plus $4 in court costs for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery city bus. Her action on Dec. 1, 1955, triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in December 1956 that segregated seats on city buses were unconstitutional, giving momentum to the battle against laws that separated the races in public accommodations and businesses throughout the South.
But Parks and her husband Raymond were exposed to harassment and death threats in Montgomery, where they also lost their jobs. They moved to Detroit with Rosa Parks' mother, Leona McCauley, in 1957.
Parks held a series of low-paying jobs before U.S. Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) hired her in 1965 to work in his Detroit office. She remained there until 1987.
Parks was initially going to be buried a family plot in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery, next to her husband and mother. But Swanson Funeral Home officials confirmed Tuesday that Parks would be entombed in a mausoleum at the cemetery and the bodies of her husband and mother also would be moved there.
___
Associated Press Writers Tom Krisher, David N. Goodman and Bree Fowler contributed to this report.