Washington Prepares To Pay Rosa Parks Rare Tribute at Capitol

After the viewing Monday, the coffin will be taken to Metropolitan AME Church in downtown Washington for a 1 p.m. memorial service. D.C. police said they will restrict parking and traffic in the area of 15th and M streets NW all day for the service. Afterward, the coffin will be taken to BWI and flown to Detroit, where there will be another vigil and then burial Tuesday.

In the past, the nation has come to the Capitol to pay tribute to presidents, senators, generals and unknown soldiers. This is the first time a private citizen renowned for social activism and the first time a woman will be the focus of the ritual.

Mary Francis Berry, a former chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said scores of people will pay tribute because Parks was a champion of ordinary people. "Here is a person who is in relative obscurity, who made an enormous change," Berry said. "Sometimes the most unlikely people can make a difference if they are committed to a principle."

Parks is again making history, admirers said. "There has to be a standard for a civilian to be accorded such a high honor," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) "Rosa Parks has met that standard of extraordinary service to her country. She didn't have a weapon on her. She didn't have an organization behind her. All she had was her conviction."

The tribute, which requires an act of Congress, has taken place 30 times, historians say. The first person so honored was Henry Clay, in 1852. The last person was Reagan, in June of last year. Others were nine presidents, eight members of Congress, an admiral, two generals, two government officials, two Capitol police officers slain at their posts, unknown soldiers and Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the architect who designed Washington, D.C.

"I think it's a very powerful message honoring Ms. Parks and, therefore, so many who did so much for the cause of equality," said Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. "More than that, highlighting Ms. Parks is an opportunity to highlight the tremendous impact that one individual can have, even in moving a nation."

The Rev. Grainger Browning Jr., pastor of Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, said he expects many from his flock to attend the tribute at the Capitol because members of the Parks family were longtime members of the church.

Fred Gray, the Alabama lawyer who represented Parks after she was arrested, said many leaders of the civil rights movement will be scrambling to get to Washington this weekend.

Staff writer Robert E. Pierre contributed to this report.