The NewsHour on PBS reported on a memorial service for Rosa Parks:

Julian Bond: Ms. Parks was much, much more than the bus woman. She was much, much more than that. Eldridge Cleaver famously remarked that when she sat down that December day in Montgomery fifty years ago, somewhere in the universe a gear in the machinery had shifted. Rosa Parks shifted the gears of the universe all her life. Now she belongs to the universe.

Oprah Winfrey: That day that you refused to give up your seat on the bus, you, Sister Rosa, changed the trajectory of my life, and the lives of so many other people in the world.

Ted Kennedy: She, too, was our shepherd. She restored our soul. She led us in the paths of righteousness. She walked through the valley of the shadow of death, but she feared no evil, because she knew the Lord was with her. Goodness and mercy followed her all the days of her life, and now — and now — she dwells in the house of the Lord forever.