Lithonia, Ga. ? When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, President Johnson didn’t attend his funeral, choosing instead to meet with his Cabinet about the Vietnam War.

But at services for Coretta Scott King, four U.S. presidents took turns Tuesday saluting “the first lady of the civil rights movement” for her efforts over 40 years to realize her husband’s dream of racial equality.

They joined 10,000 other mourners – including numerous members of Congress and many gray-haired veterans of the struggle for civil rights – to say goodbye to King, who died Jan. 30 at age 78 after battling ovarian cancer and the effects of a stroke.

More than three dozen speakers addressed the immense crowd that filled the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church – a modern, arena-style megachurch in a suburban Atlanta county that was once a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan but today has one of the most affluent black populations in the country.

President Bush ordered flags flown at half-staff across the country and saluted Coretta Scott King as “a woman who worked to make our nation whole.”

An Atlanta Police Department honor guard stands at attention in front of the tomb of Coretta Scott King during a brief burial ceremony at the King Center in Atlanta. King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a civil rights leader in her own right, was buried Tuesday.

“Coretta Scott King not only secured her husband’s legacy, she built her own,” Bush told the crowd. “Having loved a leader, she became a leader, and when she spoke, Americans listened closely.”

Former President Clinton urged mourners to follow in her footsteps, honor her husband’s sacrifice and help the couple’s children fulfill their parents’ legacy. Former President Bush said the “world is a kinder and gentler place because of Coretta Scott King.” President Carter praised the Kings for their ability to “wage a fierce struggle for freedom and justice and to do it peacefully.”

The funeral at times turned political, with some speakers decrying the war in Iraq, the Bush administration’s eavesdropping program and the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina in mostly black New Orleans.

The Rev. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, speaks during her mother's funeral service. Four U.S. presidents joined others in honoring Coretta Scott King on Tuesday at a service in Lithonia, Ga.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr., drew a roaring standing ovation when he said: “For war, billions more, but no more for the poor” – a takeoff on a line from a Stevie Wonder song.

The comment drew head shakes from Bush and his father as they sat behind the pulpit.

Two hours after Tuesday’s funeral, Coretta Scott King’s coffin was placed in a tomb near her husband’s at the King Center, which she built to promote his memory. Her tomb is inscribed with a passage from First Corinthians: “And now abide Faith, Hope, Love, These Three; but the greatest of these is Love.”

Over the last several days, more than 160,000 mourners waited in long lines to pay their respects and file past King’s open casket during viewings at churches and the Georgia Capitol, where King became the first woman and the first black person to lie in honor.

“She made many great sacrifices,” said Sean Washington, 38, who drove from Tampa, Fla., with his wife and children to attend the funeral. “To be in her presence once more is something that I would definitely cherish, no matter what.”

The youngest of the Kings’ four children, Bernice, delivered remarks that were part fiery sermon and part eulogy. She was 5 when her father was assassinated, and was famously photographed lying in her mother’s lap during her father’s funeral.

Bernice King, a minister at the megachurch, yelled at times as she preached against violence and materialism, saying that her mother’s purpose in life was to spread her father’s message of peace and unconditional love.

“Thank you, mother, for your incredible example of Christ-like love and obedience,” she said.