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Music and mourning for Coretta Scott King

Ceremonies at her late husband's church

Oprah Winfrey hugs Christine King Farris, sister of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

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Clinic that treated King closed (2:39)

Honor at Georgia Capitol (2:47)

Caretaker of King's legacy (3:42)

Gallery: Coretta Scott King

• Audio Slide Show: Respects

• Sudden death shocked children

• Coretta Scott King dies

• TIME: The Kings' struggle

• The King Center

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ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Thousands of mourners filed past the casket of Coretta Scott King on Monday, paying their respects to the "first lady of the civil rights movement" at the historic church where her husband shared his dream for racial equality in the 1960s.

People lined up for blocks outside Ebenezer Baptist Church, waiting for hours in freezing rain for a moment to bid farewell to the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Across the street, at least 1,000 people filled the church's newer facility for a musical tribute, including Oprah Winfrey and other entertainers such as Gladys Knight.

"For me, she embodied royalty. She was the queen," Winfrey said. "You knew she was a force."

Winfrey laughed as she described persuading King to get a new hairdo on her TV show. And she became emotional when she told how King, in the week before her death, sent her a handmade quilt that her husband's mother had passed down.

"She leaves us all a better America than the America of her childhood," Winfrey said.

King, 78, died January 30 at an alternative medicine clinic in Mexico, where doctors said she was battling advanced ovarian cancer. She also had been recovering from a serious stroke and heart attack.

As the service concluded, King's eldest daughter, Yolanda King, told the gathering: "I know it is the prayers of so many of you and from all over the world that carried her safely home. We knew firsthand the enduring power of love."

Inside the silent sanctuary across the street, more than 46,000 mourners filed slowly past the casket, some lingering a moment before moving on. Many walked away dabbing their eyes at the sight of King's body, which was dressed in a pink suit, with a shroud of flowers blanketing the lower half of the casket. She lay directly below the pulpit where her husband preached from 1960 until 1968.

Mary Howard-Hamilton, a college professor from Bloomington, Indiana, drove eight hours to Atlanta and then stood in the rain for five more to be among the first to view King's body at the church.

"It's almost like the torch was passed when I walked past her," Howard-Hamilton, 51, said. "I felt empowered. I'm gonna step up now. This fight's not over."

During the weekend, some 42,000 mourners walked past King's open casket at the state Capitol, where she became the first woman and the first black person to lie in honor there. It was a striking contrast to the official snub her slain husband had been given by then-Gov. Lester Maddox, an outspoken segregationist.

President Bush and former President Clinton lead the list of dignitaries expected to attend her funeral Tuesday, to be held at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a 10,000-seat church in Lithonia where the Kings' youngest child, Bernice, is a minister.

In a proclamation issued on Monday, Bush said flags shall be lowered until sunset on Tuesday at the White House and on all public buildings, U.S. naval vessels, military posts and embassies across the nation and abroad.

At a service later Monday, civil rights leaders memorialized. Speakers included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Rep. John Lewis, former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young and the Rev. Joseph Lowery.

Workers on Monday erected a temporary, marble mausoleum for King near that of her late husband at the King Center which she founded in his name, said Brandon Shields, president and owner of Marietta-based Roberts-Shields Memorial Company. It will be used temporarily until a structure identical to the slain civil rights leader's can be built.

King suffered a stroke and heart attack last year and had been diagnosed with cancer, but she appeared to be making steps toward recovery, her children said Sunday.

She was to begin treatment at an alternative medical clinic in Mexico the day she died.

"It came as a tremendous shock to us. We had no idea," Yolanda King said at a news conference. "She was walking with a cane, she was speaking more words ... there was clearly progress happening."

Yolanda King said family members had thoroughly researched the clinic and "were stunned when we found out there were problems and challenges there." Mexican authorities shut down the clinic days after King's death, saying it had carried out unproven treatments and unauthorized surgeries. (Full story)

"We're missing her like crazy, but we're just so thankful that we had her as long as we did," Yolanda King said. "She's been released and we feel so strongly that she has reconnected with our father."