WASHINGTON, Oct 31: Thousands of Americans, including President Bush and first lady Laura Bush, streamed through the US Capitol Rotunda on Monday to pay tribute to Rosa Parks.

Some of them had to wait in line for hours to see the closed casket of the woman whose defiant act on a city bus in 1955 inspired the modern civil rights movement.

Mr Bush, who presented a wreath but did not speak at the ceremony, issued a proclamation ordering the United States flag to be flown at half staff over all public buildings on Wednesday, the day of Ms Parks’s funeral and burial in Detroit.