Students honored Rosa Parks, the woman known as the "mother of the modern civil rights movement," last night with a candlelight vigil and song.

University students and members of the Ann Arbor community gathered on the Diag to honor Parks, who died in Detroit on Oct. 24, in an event sponsored by the University's chapter of the NAACP and the Black Student Union.

Parks is most often remembered for her 1955 arrest after refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala.

The act of civil disobedience was the catalyst that prompted the year-long Montgomery bus boycott and launched Martin Luther King Jr. to fame as the driving force behind the civil rights movement.

University President Mary Sue Coleman attended and spoke at the vigil. "It was enormously inspiring for me to see the outcome," she said of the funeral held yesterday in Detroit, which was both a celebration and a farewell.

University Vice President for Student Affairs E. Royster Harper also spoke. "Tonight we praise an unknown seamstress," she said, "and her act of defiance."

The idea of "quiet strength" is a philosophy that guided Parks's activism over the years. "Some of the greatest communication we can have is what is not said," LSA senior Isaiah Pettway said.

A number of students expressed gratitude for Parks's silent action. Jillian Walker, an LSA junior who also sang at the event said, "She meant a lot, not only to the black community, but to Americans."

The evening's speakers challenged the crowd to continue Parks's legacy. "The community needs someone that still has the spirit of Rosa Parks," said Pastor Mark Lyons of the Second Baptist Church. "Somebody's life will be different because we took a stand for justice."

"Where's the next Rosa Parks coming from?" Lyons asked. Answered LSA freshman Lisa Lozen: "There's a lot of us that can take that extra step to go out of the box and out of prejudice."

The evening concluded with a performance by the University Gospel Chorale and a moment of silence. Organizers said this was a purposeful ending - expressing remembrance of a person who inspired change with her action, rather than what she said.