From the Montgomery Advertiser.

It will be a homecoming the likes of which Montgomery has seldom seen.

Rosa Parks, who nearly 50 years ago made a short trip on a bus that changed the course of national history, is coming home. A glorious welcome is planned, with hundreds expected to line the streets outside her home church, where she will lie in repose today and Sunday.

“We want people who know freedom songs because we want to make this a joyful celebration,” said the Rev. Joseph Rembert, pastor of St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The pastor said Parks is expected to have a horse-drawn carriage waiting to take her the last few blocks to St. Paul, and hundreds will follow along.

The famous civil rights heroine died Monday in Detroit at the age of 92 after a lengthy illness.

Beginning at 3 p.m. today, thousands will be able to view Parks’ casket and say goodbye. On Sunday, the church will honor her with a special program and praise. After that, she will be taken to Washington, where she will lie in honor in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.

On Friday, people throughout the city prepared for the great homecoming as those who knew Parks and once walked alongside her paid tribute.

Inside Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, her supporters stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, rocking from side to side, their arms locked together as if they preparing for a protest march.

But the crowd members inside the modest Montgomery church once led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were not there for a march. They came to salute the memory of a woman.

Hundreds filed into the church Friday for the Montgomery Improvement Association’s memorial tribute to Parks.

Black and white, young and old turned out to commemorate Parks’ death. But it was her life that leaders spoke of, calling her a true lady, “dauntless, fearless and determined.”

“Had she not sat down that day, I doubt that we would have had the movement that we did,” said Johnnie Carr, who enjoyed the childhood friendship of Parks and remained a close friend to Parks until the day she died.

More than 1,000 people had turned out before the program even began at 11 a.m. Among them were Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright; state Reps. Alvin Holmes and John Knight Jr.; state Sen. Quinton Ross; the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Morris Dees; Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley; former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman; Toby Roth, Gov. Bob Riley’s chief of staff, who read a proclamation from the governor; the Rev. Robert Graetz, a white minister whose house was bombed numerous times during the movement; and former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young.

Lines full of people spilled into the church corridors. The spillover room itself overflowed. People stood along the walls. Inside the church, they filled the pews and squeezed in close to each other in order to make room for others.

They listened to a story that has been told and retold and they wanted to hear more. Young and others recounted stories about Parks.

Parks stood up to the evil of segregation and spawned a massive 381-day bus protest to break the back of Jim Crow. On Dec. 1, 1955, Parks refused a bus drivers’ order to relinquish her bus seat to a white, male passenger.

Young praised Parks’ stand and said her actions that cool December day were “consistent with her quiet dignity.” He challenged the crowd to remember and reflect on her legacy.

“I hope you can continue to live in her spirit,” Young said to the crowd. “Rosa Parks brought us to the kingdom, and we thank her and love her.”

“Mrs. Parks could take it no longer, and she prepared herself for change,” said Dees, co- founder of the SPLC. “She decried the mistreatment of African-Americans, especially women.”

Graetz recalled the day when he and his wife received news that their house had been bombed. The two were among a small contingent of white Montgomerians who openly supported the boycott.

Their lives constantly were threatened. He recalled the day they returned to their home and Parks was with them. Graetz became emotional as he described the image he saw as he searched his house.

He recalled seeing Parks in his kitchen “quietly sweeping up the broken dishes.”

“That’s the kind of person she was,” Graetz said.

Those who knew Parks often talk about how she was so quiet and never sang her own praises. On Friday, hundreds did that for her.

The voices of children singing filled the sanctuary. Adults in the crowd sang along. The faces of the old beamed with pride as they watched the generation that has reaped the bounty of their struggle.

George Washington Carver Elementary School students drew applause as they belted out “Oh, Freedom!” Afterward, students from E.D. Nixon Elementary School performed “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” On nearly every note, the crowd cheered the youth and stood applauding.

They prayed, laughed and sang together.

Culminating the service, they sang: “We shall overcome some day. Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day.”

The Rev. Michael Thurman, pastor at Dexter, smiled proudly as people hugged each other and mixed and mingled after the special service.

“Mrs. Parks would have wanted it this way,” he said afterward. “She opened opportunities for African-Americans that had been closed before.”

Fred Gray, who served as Parks’ attorney during the boycott, was unable to attend Friday’s service, but tucked neatly inside the program was a letter from him about his former client.

“We were able to build a movement upon the foundation of her courage and strength,” Gray wrote. “When she sat down, 40,000 people in Montgomery stood up.”

People held on to that letter and the program. Many visitors pleaded with church members for extra programs so that they could take them home for keepsakes.

“This was great,” said the Rev. Benjamin Jones, pastor of St. James Missionary Baptist Church in Waugh. “She (Parks) was an inspiration for all people. Even in her death, that strength still exists.”