Tens of Thousands Pay Final Respects to Kennedy
By VOA News 28 August 2009

Well-wishers overcome with emotion file past Sen. Edward Kennedy's coffin at John F. Kennedy Pres. Library and Museum, Boston, 28 Aug, 2009

Americans have lined up by the thousands to say one last goodbye to the late U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, the influential lawmaker and last member of a generation of Kennedy political leaders.

For a second day, members of Kennedy's family greeted those who gathered in Boston, Massachusetts, at the library and museum named for the late senator's brother, slain President John F. Kennedy.

The senator's staff estimated that 25,000 people filed past the flag-draped coffin Thursday, and the line of mourners again extended around the building on Friday.

The longtime Democratic senator died Tuesday at the age of 77, after a year-long battle with brain cancer.

A private memorial service is scheduled to take place after public viewing of the closed casket wraps up later in the day.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, a long-time Democratic colleague in the Senate, as well as former U.S. presidential candidate Republican Senator John McCain, are among those expected to speak.

President Barack Obama will deliver a eulogy Saturday at a funeral Mass in Boston before the senator's burial at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington.

Although Kennedy, a liberal stalwart, earned the nickname "Lion of the Senate," lawmakers who served with him, and all living former U.S. presidents, have praised the late senator for his ability to reach across party lines to pass health care, civil rights and education legislation.

Three former presidents, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, are expected to attend the funeral.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will not be attending the funeral, but wrote in Friday's Boston Globe that Kennedy is being mourned as a "great internationalist" who inspired social progress in every country.

Tributes also have come from other world leaders, highlighting Kennedy's dedication to human rights and his work to end apartheid in South Africa.

On Thursday, thousands of people lined streets to catch a glimpse of the motorcade that brought the coffin of Senator Kennedy to the museum from his home in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod.

Some information for this report was provided by AP.

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