Bush pays tribute to US civil rights leaders

WASHINGTON - US President George W Bush today paid tribute to civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr and Rosa Parks and said they had "roused a dozing conscience of a complacent nation" with their fight for equality.

"At the dawn of this new century, America can be proud of the progress we have made toward equality, but we all must recognize we have more to do," Bush said at the Kennedy Centre on a national holiday commemorating King, the slain civil rights leader.

Parks, who made history by refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in 1955, died in October.

Bush last year had to fend off criticism his administration's slow response to Hurricane Katrina may have been because many of the victims were poor and black.

He also angered the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 2004 for refusing to talk at the annual convention of the country's oldest civil rights organisation.

At today's event, he and NAACP President Bruce Gordon exchanged friendly words and Bush expressed appreciation for Gordon's "strong leadership". 

Earlier, Bush visited the National Archives to view the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln that took effect on January 1, 1863.

The document, which during the Civil War called for freeing slaves in rebellious states, is brought out of the vault and displayed in a glass case once a year.

- REUTERS