Four U.S. presidents at King funeral
Thousands pay respects to widow of slain civil rights leader
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- President Bush and three former presidents are among the 10,000 people mourning Coretta Scott King at her funeral Tuesday in suburban Atlanta.
In addition to the president, luminaries on hand included first lady Laura Bush, former President Clinton and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, former President George H.W. Bush, former President Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter as well as Maya Angelou, the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and Stevie Wonder.
The presidentordered federal facilities to fly flags at half-staff Tuesday in honor of King, who died last week at age 78.
This week's tributes differed sharply from when then-Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox refused to honor her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., following his 1968 assassination. Maddox refused to attend the funeral, calling the civil rights leader "an enemy of the country."
Coretta Scott King's funeral is taking place at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a 10,000-seat church in Lithonia, where her daughter Bernice is a minister.
Before the funeral, mourners had one last chance to say goodbye to King at the church. Schools closed for the day in DeKalbCounty, where the funeral is being held.
King died January 30 at a clinic in Mexico, where she had sought alternative treatment for advanced ovarian cancer. She also had suffered a stroke and heart attack last year.
Tens of thousands of mourners braved a chilly February rain Monday to pay their final respects at Ebenezer Baptist Church -- where King's husband once preached.
The public viewing at Ebenezer followed one at the Georgia Capitol over the weekend. Coretta Scott King was the first woman and the first African-American to receive such an honor.
"I wanted to pay my respects, and I wanted to say goodbye to her personally," said Diane Cunningham, one of the thousands drawn to Ebenezer. "She is the first lady of the African-American community, and she will be very much missed."
Oprah Winfrey remembered King as a woman of "stalwart grace" during a musical tribute inside the new Ebenezer sanctuary, across the street from the historic church.
"Every time I sat with her, whether she spoke or not, I came away wiser, knowing more about how to live and what it means to be a real woman," Winfrey said. "I felt blessed always to be in her presence. She leaves us all a better America than the America of her childhood."
King's oldest child, Yolanda, offered her family's thanks "for this glorious outpouring of love and support and care that we have felt during this time."
"We stood in the sunshine of her being," Yolanda King said. "Through her inexhaustible giving, we learned to give. Through her faith, we learned the confidence of knowing that peace on Earth is inevitable."
On Monday evening, many of the civil rights leaders who worked alongside King and her husband spoke at the day's second memorial service in the new Ebenezer sanctuary.
CNN's Rusty Dornin and John Murgatroyd contributed to this report.
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