NEW YORK (AP) — An essay written by Rosa Parks discloses how she was nearly raped as a young woman while working as a housekeeper for a white neighbor.
The civil rights activist wrote the document in her own hand many years after the incident.
The essay is among thousands of her personal items currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and offices of Guernsey's Auctioneers.
Historians call the find among her papers astounding.
The company has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive. Proceeds from the sale will be used to resolve a dispute over her estate.
Parks is credited with starting the civil rights movement by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Ala., bus in 1955.
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