Rosa Parks tribute letter to Martin Luther King on sale

A HAND-WRITTEN letter by Rosa Parks honouring Martin Luther King has been put up for sale.

Valued at $54,000 (£41,273), the letter was written by Parks 13 years after King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

The document links two of the icons of the civil rights movement.

Parks was a black woman who was arrested and briefly jailed in December 1955 for refusing to surrender her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was the first person to challenge the state’s segregation laws. After being released on bail, she was fined $10 and told to pay $4 court costs.

Her arrest became a cause célèbre among black residents. Led by King, a local clergyman, they organised a boycott of the local bus system.

A 381-day protest in which African Americans refused to travel on the city’s buses and a series of legal challenges culminated in a Supreme Court ruling that forced Montgomery to desegregate its transport system. It also led to the sweeping away of the discriminatory laws in the South.

The letter, which has been owned by an anonymous private collector, is for sale through the Moments In Time website.

It was sent to a Mr Kessler, an autograph collector, who had written to Parks asking her opinion of the civil rights leader. She wrote: “I admired and respected him [King] as a truly great man committed and dedicated to freedom, peace and loyalty for all oppressed humanity.

“He was a leader of the masses in Montgomery and the nation.”

Parks, who died aged 92 in 2005, was honoured with a statue in Montgomery.