Thousands Pay Final Respects to Rosa Parks in Detroit (Published 2005)

Rosa Parks, the unassuming seamstress whose small act of defiance on a city bus 50 years ago helped spark the modern civil rights movement, was memorialized today in Detroit in a lavish funeral service attended by thousands of dignitaries and ordinary people.

Beginning at dawn, people began lining up around the cavernous Greater Grace Temple, in Mrs. Park's adopted hometown, and hours later the line still wrapped around two blocks.

"The world knows of Rosa Parks because of a simple single act of dignity and courage that struck a lethal blow to the foundations of legal bigotry," said former President Bill Clinton, who spoke early in a nearly six-hour service that featured rousing words in tributes and songs.

When Mrs. Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, "in a region where gentlemen are supposed to give up their seats for ladies," he said, "she was just taking the next step on her own road to freedom."

In doing so, Mr. Clinton said, she "ignited the most significant social movement in modern American history."

Mr. Clinton noted that Mrs. Parks was a petite woman, and said it brought to his mind Abraham Lincoln's remark upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."