APNewsBreak: Rosa Parks essay reveals rape attempt

[ej510]

NEW YORK (AP) — Long before Rosa Parks was hailed as the "mother of the civil rights movement," she wrote a detailed and harrowing account of nearly being raped by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper in 1931.

The six-page essay, written in her own hand many years after the incident, is among thousands of her personal items currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and cramped offices of Guernsey's Auctioneers, which has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive.

>snip

Of her own experience, Parks wrote, "He offered me a drink of whiskey, which I promptly and vehemently refused. . He moved nearer to me and put his hand on my waist. I was very frightened by now."

"He liked me. .. he didn't want me to be lonely and would I be sweet to him. He had money to give me for accepting his attentions," she wrote.

"I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never."

Read more at the link: http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn

[Brickbat]

1. So brave, in so many ways.

[ej510]

2. One of many black leaders from that era.

[monmouth]

3. Why not the Smithsonian for her personal items? She is an icon...n/t