Rosa Parks to be first woman to ‘lie in honour’

ROSA PARKS, the seamstress whose act of defiance on a public bus a half-century ago helped spark the US civil rights movement, will join presidents and war heroes who have been honoured in death with a public viewing in the Capitol Rotunda.

Ms Parks, who died on Monday in Detroit at age 92, also will be the first woman to lie in honour in the Rotunda, the vast circular room under the Capitol dome in Washington.

The House of Representatives yesterday passed by voice vote a resolution allowing Ms Parks to be honoured in the Capitol tomorrow and Monday “so that the citizens of the United States may pay their last respects to this great American.”