Pelosi opened Friday’s ceremony with brief remarks, saying “It is with profound sorrow and deep sympathy to the Ginsburg family that I have the high honor to welcome Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to lie in state in the Capitol of the United States. She does so on a catafalque built for Abraham Lincoln. May she rest in peace.”
She was followed by the mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, a favorite of the opera-loving Justice Ginsburg, who performed “Deep River” and “American Anthem,” and Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, whose husband clerked for Justice Ginsburg from 2014 to 2015. Holtzblatt, who also eulogized Justice Ginsburg at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, recounted on Friday how the future justice faced numerous obstacles, notably because of her gender, as she made her determined journey to the top of the legal profession. “Justice did not arrive like a lightening bolt, but rather through dogged persistence, all the days of her life,” said Hotlzblatt. “Real change, she said, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”
After the formal ceremony was over, a group of female lawmakers returned to the chamber, led by Pelosi, where they circled Ginsburg’s casket in groups or around a dozen at a time, with a few of the women resting their hands on the casket before leaving. (One unusual tribute was paid by Ginsburg’s personal trainer, who stopped in front of her casket and then dropped to the ground to do a few pushups.)
Ginsburg’s family plans to hold a private burial next week at Arlington National Cemetery, where she will be buried next to her late husband, Marty.