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Rosa
Parks
medals,
personal
items up
for
grabs at
New York
auction
house
By JESSE
J.
HOLLAND
Associated
Press
NEW YORK
- At a
time
when
interest
in civil
rights
memorabilia
is
rekindled,
a
lifetime's
worth of
Rosa
Parks'
belongings
- among
them her
Presidential
Medal of
Freedom
- sits
in a New
York
warehouse,
unseen
and
unsold.
Parks'
archives
could be
worth
millions,
especially
now that
50th
anniversaries
of the
civil
rights
era are
being
celebrated
and the
hunt is
on for
artifacts
to fill
a new
Smithsonian
museum
of
African-American
history.
But a
years-long
legal
fight
between
Parks'
heirs
and her
friends
- a
dispute
similar
to the
court
battle
among
Martin
Luther
King
Jr.'s
heirs -
led to
the
memorabilia
being
taken
away
from her
home
city of
Detroit
and
offered
up to
the
highest
bidder.
So far,
no high
bidder
has
emerged.
Parks is
one of
the most
beloved
women in
American
history.
She
became
an
enduring
symbol
of the
civil
rights
movement
when she
refused
to cede
her seat
on a
Montgomery,
Ala.,
bus to a
white
man.
That
triggered
a
yearlong
bus
boycott
that
helped
to
dismantle
officially
sanctioned
segregation,
and lift
King to
national
prominence.
Because
of the
fight
over
Parks'
will,
historians,
students
of the
movement
and the
general
public
have had
no
access
to items
such as
her
photographs
with
presidents,
her
Congressional
Gold
Medal, a
pillbox
hat that
she may
have
worn on
the
Montgomery
bus, a
signed
postcard
from
King,
decades
of
documents
from
civil
rights
meetings,
and her
ruminations
about
life in
the
South as
a black
woman.
Parks
wanted
people
to see
her
mementos
and
learn
from her
life,
said
Elaine
Steele,
a
longtime
friend
who
heads
the Rosa
and
Raymond
Parks
Institute
for Self
Development,
a
foundation
Parks
co-founded
in
Detroit
in 1987.
"In my
opinion,
it was
quite
clear
what she
wanted,"
Steele
said.
Steele's
lawyer,
Steven
Cohen,
said
Parks'
heirs
and the
institute
certainly
could
come to
agreement
on
sending
the
artifacts
to an
appropriate
institution
"if we
could
close
out the
estate
and get
away
from"
the
probate
court.
He said
he hopes
to
resolve
the
matter
in six
months
to a
year.
"It will
happen,"
Cohen
said.
"But
right
now
we're
hamstrung,
because
the
probate
court
continues
to want
to
monitor
and
control
our
activities.
And it
shouldn't."
Parks,
who died
in 2005
at age
92,
stipulated
in her
will
that the
institute
bearing
her name
receive
a trove
of
personal
correspondence,
papers
relating
to her
work for
the
Montgomery
branch
of the
NAACP,
tributes
from
presidents
and
world
leaders,
school
books,
family
Bibles,
clothing
and
furniture.
Her
nieces
and
nephews
challenged
her
will,
and her
archives
were
seized
by a
court; a
judge
ordered
it sold
in one
lump
sale.
King's
belongings
also are
locked
in a
legal
dispute.
King's
sons,
Martin
Luther
King III
and
Dexter
Scott
King,
want to
sell or
lease
their
father's
Nobel
Peace
Prize
medallion
and one
of his
Bibles;
King's
daughter,
the Rev.
Bernice
King,
opposes
such a
move.
Because
of the
squabbling,
a judge
ordered
the
Bible
and
prize
medal to
be held
in a
safe
deposit
box
controlled
by the
court
until
the
disagreement
can be
resolved.
Since
2006,
Guernsey's
Auctioneers
have
kept
Parks'
valuables
in a New
York
warehouse,
waiting
for
someone
to offer
the $8
million
to $10
million
asking
price.
By
comparison,
the city
of
Atlanta
paid $32
million
to
King's
children
for his
papers,
and the
Henry
Ford
Museum
paid
$492,000
just for
the bus
aboard
which
Parks
took her
1955
stand
for
civil
rights.
Rex
Ellis,
associate
director
of
Curatorial
Affairs
at the
Smithsonian
National
Museum
of
African
American
History
and
Culture,
thinks
Parks'
archives
should
be in a
museum
or
research
facility.
Ellis
would
not say
whether
Smithsonian
officials
are
interested
in
buying
it, just
that
they
would
"love
for
these
items to
be a
part of
the
museum,"
due to
open
next
year,
which is
also the
60th
anniversary
of the
Montgomery
bus
boycott.
"She was
just an
extraordinary
figure
that any
student
of
American
history,
not
African-American
history,
any
student
of
American
history
should
know and
be aware
of,"
Ellis
said.
Steele,
wearing
a lapel
button
that
read, "I
(heart)
Rosa
Parks,"
said the
fact
that
Parks'
belongings
are
stuck in
court-ordered
limbo is
"very
heartbreaking,"
because
it has
taken
away a
powerful
learning
tool.
"If you
see
something
of Dr.
King's
or
President
Lincoln,
Malcolm
X, it's
quite
special.
`Wow.
These
were
their
personal
things,'"
Steele
said.
"That
means
quite a
bit."
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