Arlan Ettinger will never forget the response he got when he took one of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks' hats to a meeting at the Apollo Theater in New York.
"It was a fairly plain-looking black hat. And then I said it was Rosa Parks'. And their mouths just opened up without saying a word and tears" flowed, Ettinger said. "It was a very, very powerful moment. You could see the impact this woman has had on everyone."
A Wayne County probate court judge in Detroit has asked Ettinger's auction house, Guernsey's, to find a buyer preferably a museum, university or other institution for thousands of Parks' personal items.
Among them are her presidential and congressional medals, a post card from Martin Luther King Jr. and the hat Parks is...