US Army Honor Guard carries the casket of Rosa Parks to a waiting hearse at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

Former President Bill Clinton has delivered remarks in Detroit, Michigan, at Wednesday's funeral services for U.S. civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

Mr. Clinton said a single act by Mrs. Parks struck a lethal blow to legalized bigotry, and ignited the most significant social movement in American history.

Senators Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Barack Obama, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and singer Aretha Franklin are among the large number of political leaders and other prominent personalities attending the service.

Mrs. Parks died last week in Detroit at the age of 92. Her casket was taken to her hometown of Montgomery, Alabama, and then to Washington, D.C. for memorial services that were attended by tens of thousands of admirers. Her body also lay in honor inside the U.S. Capitol.

Mrs. Parks was arrested in 1955 when she refused to give her seat on a crowded Montgomery city bus to a white passenger. Her act of civil disobedience triggered a series of events that energized the civil rights movement and led to the end of legalized segregation in the United States.