More than 10,000 people have filed past the coffin of Coretta Scott King, the late widow of US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior.
King, who died on Tuesday at the age of 78, became the first woman and the first black person to be honoured with a public viewing in the Capitol of the southern state of Georgia.
Braving rain and cold temperatures, admirers of Coretta Scott King lined up for five city blocks to pay the civil rights activist their final respects. Many spent more than two hours standing in line to enter the Capitol.
Coretta and Martin Luther King's four children, Yolanda Bernice, Martin Luther III, and Dexter, spent a few private moments by the open casket before the rotunda was opened to the public.
President George Bush has postponed a trip to New Hampshire to attend King's funeral, scheduled in Atlanta for Tuesday, and was expected to make remarks as part of the service, the White House said.
He will be accompanied by First Lady Laura Bush.
King, a civil rights activist in her own right, carried on her husband's mission after his assassination in 1968. Her body was flown to Atlanta on Wednesday from Mexico, where she had sought treatment for ovarian cancer.
A horse-drawn carriage brought her casket to the Capitol, where a lone bagpiper played the hymn Amazing Grace as an honour guard carried the coffin into the rotunda under the solemn gaze of Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue and other mourners.
Her husband, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was denied the honour of a public viewing under then-governor Lester Maddox following his April 1968 assassination.
"She's in a place of everlasting equality now," said Perdue, describing King as "a gracious and courageous woman, an inspiration for millions and one of the most influential civil rights leaders of our time".
Perdue added that she was "absolutely an anchor and support for her husband".
Coretta Scott, a promising singer, married King in 1953 and immediately supported his equal rights campaign, often speaking on his behalf when he was unable to attend an engagement.
Four days after his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Coretta Scott King led an equal rights march of 50,000 people through the streets of the Tennessee city.
While raising four children, she campaigned fiercely to keep alive her husband's message of non-violent change.
On Monday, her body will be moved to the Baptist church in Atlanta where Martin Luther King used to preach and where the funeral service will be held.
AFP