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Rosa Parks Archives Remain Unsold in Warehouse

At a time when interest in civil rights memorabilia is rekindled, a lifetime's worth of Rosa Parks' belongings sits in a New York warehouse, unseen and unsold.

NEW YORK (AP) — At a time when interest in civil rights memorabilia is rekindled, a lifetime's worth of Rosa Parks' belongings sits in a New York warehouse, unseen and unsold.

Parks' archives could be worth millions, especially now that the 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 led to her memorabilia being taken away from her home city of Detroit and offered to the highest bidder.

So far, no bidder has emerged and her archives remains warehoused.

Parks 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.

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(Photo: Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

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