Thousands Honor Parks With Songs, Thanks
By Kathy Barks Hoffman / Associated Press
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.
"The woman we honored today held no public office, she wasn't a wealthy woman, didn't appear in the society pages," said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. "And yet when the history of this country is written, it is this small, quiet woman whose name will be remembered long after the names of senators and presidents have been forgotten."
"You ought to resolve that you are going to do something that will make a difference -- we're here because she made a difference." As Al Sharpton said, "Make a Rosa Resolution."
Civil Rights Giants Have Words for George;"He missed an opportunity to name somebody to the courts with the spirit of Rosa Parks, with diversity and minority rights." -- Joseph Lowery
Mourners pay tribute to Rosa Parks
DETROIT, Michigan (CNN) -- Thousands of mourners packed a Detroit church Wednesday for an emotional tribute to civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who changed the country 50 years ago when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man.
About 4,000 people crowded the Greater Grace Temple in Parks' adopted hometown for her funeral, and another 1,000 people sat in an overflow room of the church. Hundreds more lined up outside the building.
The ceremony brought together civil rights giants -- the Revs. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Joseph Lowery -- along with prominent figures such as former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton; Michigan Rep. John Conyers; Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan; and singer Aretha Franklin.
Condoleezza Rice: Civil Rights Struggle Didn't Affect Me
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Most people who were alive at the time would tell you they had a lot of feelings during the civil rights era. But not Condoleezza Rice.
The secretary of state said she was too young and too busy to feel much of an effect from the massive social changes during the 1960s. Rice said she was only 12 or 13 and that all she did "was play the piano and ice skate."
Rice said because of that, she didn't focus much on what she now calls "the counterculture."
