<p>A soaring rendition of "The Lord's Prayer" by soprano Brenda Jackson and remarks praising Rosa Parks' role as a civil rights pioneer opened Parks' funeral service on Wednesday.</p><p>"Mother Parks, take your rest. You have certainly earned it," said Bishop Charles Ellis III of Greater Grace Temple, where 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, Ala.</p><p>President Clinton, his wife, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, and hundreds of other mourners paid their respects at Parks' open casket prior to the start of the funeral service. Those in the audience held hands and sang "We Shall Overcome" as family members filed past the casket before it was closed just before noon.</p><p>A wave of politicians and other dignitaries entered the sanctuary at Greater Grace Temple before the service began. Thousands of people had waited in long lines in the chilly morning Wednesday to honor Parks.</p><p>Black-suited ushers in white gloves escorted people to their seats. Former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was there, as were Ford Motor Co. Chairman and CEO Bill Ford and the two men vying in next week's election to be the mayor of Detroit: incumbent Kwame Kilpatrick and Freman Hendrix. Members of Congress, national civil rights leaders and those who had known Parks during her nearly half-century in Detroit filled the pews.</p><p>The casket was flanked by large bouquets of white flowers and a white cross. Flower arrangements lined the stage steps and scores of choir members sat on or near the stage.</p><p>Twenty-five people, ranging from Bill Clinton to Winnie Mandela-Madzikela, were scheduled to give remarks. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has called Parks "the mother of a new America," was also to speak. Aretha Franklin was preparing to sing, and Philip R. Cousin, a senior bishop of the AME Church, had prepared a eulogy.</p><p>Hours before the funeral began, the line to get one of the 2,000 available public seats at Greater Grace Temple extended for blocks to the west of the church in Parks' adopted hometown.</p><p>Claudette Bond, 62, had been waiting since 6 p.m. Tuesday in a lawn chair. She was first in line and didn't budge, even as temperatures dipped below 40 degrees.</p><p>"This will never happen again. There will never be another Rosa Parks," said Moses Fisher, a Detroit native and Nashville, Tenn., another waiting for the chance to get a seat.</p><p>As a white hearse carried Parks' 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."</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>Parks held a series of low-paying jobs before U.S. Rep. John Conyers hired her in 1965 to work in his Detroit office. She remained there until 1987.</p><p>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.</p><p>___</p><p>Associated Press Writers Tom Krisher, David N. Goodman and Bree Fowler contributed to this report.</p>
