A handwritten letter written by Rosa Parks recalling Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.´s work in the civil rights movement is on sale for $54,000.
The letter, dated Oct. 6, 1981, was sent to a Mr. Kessler more than a decade after King´s assassination.
"I admired and respected him as a truly great man committed and dedicated to freedom, peace and equality for all oppressed humanity," Parks writes about King in the letter. "He was a leader of the masses in Montgomery, Alabama and the nation."
Moments in Time CEO Gary Zimet, whose company is selling the letter, told AL.com it´s the only letter where he´s seen Parks mentioning King, and said it's rare because it´s handwritten. "Even her typed letters are scarce," Zimet said.
Parks was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery on Dec. 1, 1955. Her arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement.
The boycott turned King, who was a young minister, into a leader in the movement. The 381-day protest of the segregated bus system ended with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.
Parks died in 2005 at age 92. A statue commemorating her life now stands in Montgomery.
