'Mother Parks, take your rest'

2005-11-02 20:17

Detroit - A soaring rendition of The Lord's Prayer moved thousands of mourners at the funeral of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks on Wednesday, with a preacher bidding: "Mother Parks, take your rest."

Former President Bill Clinton, his wife, senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and hundreds of other mourners paid their respects at Parks's open casket before the start of the funeral service that included the prayer in song by soprano Brenda Jackson.

Those in the audience held hands and sang We Shall Overcome as family members filed past the casket before it was closed.

Bishop Charles Ellis III of Greater Grace Temple led the service for 4 000 people packed in to say goodbye to the diminutive figure who sparked a civil rights revolution by refusing 50 years ago to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

"Mother Parks, take your rest. You have certainly earned it," Ellis said.

Mourners waited in long lines in the chilly morning to honour Parks.

Hours before the funeral began, the line to get one of the 2 000 available public seats at the church extended more than two blocks west in Parks's adopted hometown.

As a white hearse carried Parks's body from the Charles H Wright Museum of African American history, where viewing lasted until the pre-dawn hours, dozens of people holding pictures of Parks crowded around it.

As it began moving, they shouted, "We love you!"

Parks was 92 when she died October 24 in Detroit.

Nearly 50 years earlier, 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 December 1 1955, triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system led by the Reverend Martin Luther King jun.

- AP