Rosa Parks' body flown to Detroit

Thousands of people have been paying their respects to Mrs Parks

The body of US civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who died last week, has returned to Detroit for burial.

Thousands of mourners have been waiting in a line to pay their final respects to Parks, whose funeral is being held on Wednesday.

The body of the civil rights icon lay in honour in Montgomery, Alabama, and in Washington before being returned to the city she made her home.

Parks died at 92 in Detroit, where she had lived since 1957.

After being flown from Washington, her mahogany casket was carried into the rotunda of the Charles H Wright Museum of African American History, where it could be viewed until early Wednesday.

Honour

Tens of thousands of people have been paying their respects to the civil rights icon.

On Sunday, hundreds of mourners, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, attended a memorial service in Montgomery, Alabama.

Parks' protest inspired a generation of activists In pictures: Parks memorial

Ms Rice told those gathered: "I can honestly say that without Mrs Parks, I would not be standing here today as secretary of state."

The casket was then taken to Washington, where more than 30,000 people were reported to filed past it.

Parks' body lay in the Capitol building that houses the US Congress - she was the first woman to be accorded such an honour, usually reserved for presidents and other eminent men.

Her refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Alabama in 1955 prompted a mass black boycott of buses.

Parks' actions inspired the movement which culminated in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and an end to segregation.

President George W Bush has ordered flags at home and abroad to be flown at half mast.