Related: US civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at age of 92

    WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- People across the United States on Tuesday paid tribute to the late Rosa Parks, whose refusal a half-century ago to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Alabama touched off a new era in the civil rights movement in the country.

    Parks died on Monday evening of natural causes at her home in Detroit, Michigan, at the age of 92.

    In a speech in Washington, D.C., President George W. Bush called Parks "one of the most inspiring women of the 20th century."

    "Her show of defiance was an act of personal courage that moved millions, including a young preacher named Martin Luther King," said Bush.

    Parks' example "transformed America for the better" and "she will always have a special place in American history," he said.

    On December 1, 1955, 42-year Parks, a seamstress, refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white man who wanted to sit in her row, despite a city ordinance requiring blacks to yield their seats to whites.

    She was jailed and fined 14 US dollars for her disobedience, and her arrest sparked a 382-day boycott by blacks of Montgomery's bus system and led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision that said discrimination in public transportation was unconstitutional.

    Describing Parks as "one of America's great heroines," former president Bill Clinton said "Rosa Parks was a woman of great courage, grace and dignity. Her refusal to be treated as a second class citizen on a Montgomery bus in 1955 struck a blow to racial segregation."

    "It's a cliche to say she was the mother of the civil rights movement, but she was," said Julian Bond, chairman of the board ofthe National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

    Bruce Gordon, president and chief executive of the NAACP, said in a statement that Parks "served as an inspiration to generations of African-Americans and all people of good will."

    At a news conference in Ottawa, Canada, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Parks as "a pioneer in the civil rights movement who one day was just sick and tired of being sick and tired, and refused to give up her seat and inspired a whole generation of people to fight for freedom."

    Parks lived a life "that was long and inspirational well beyond that single act," said Rice, the highest ranking black woman in the US government.

    "Today, America mourns the loss of a woman who changed our nation," US House Speaker Dennis Hastert said of Parks, who was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor in 1999, the nation's highest civilian award. Enditem