<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
By Alabama State University<\/p>\n
A rare handwritten note by civil rights icon Rosa Parks about how the Ku Klux Klan bombed a neighbor\u2019s home in 1957 in Montgomery will move back to the \u201cCity of Dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n
The note will be transferred from the\u00a0rarefied vault of an international auction house on Manhattan\u2019s\u00a0upper East Side to a climate-controlled enclosure in Alabama State University\u2019s (ASU) archives, thanks to a Montgomery family who lived\u00a0in the house mentioned in Parks\u2019 note.<\/p>\n
The family who bought the 1957 note last Friday from New York City\u2019s Guernsey\u2019s Auction for $9,375 is led by the Rev. Robert (Bob)\u00a0and Jeannie\u00a0Graetz, whose home\u00a0at\u00a0Mill Street and Cleveland Avenue in Montgomery\u00a0was bombed by the KKK in the early morning of Jan. 10, 1957. Parks vividly described the bombing in her note.The Graetzes\u00a0are known as pioneers in Alabama\u2019s civil rights movement, and since\u00a0retiring from the Lutheran clergy\u00a0serve\u00a0as\u00a0advisers and consultants\u00a0with\u00a0ASU\u2019s\u00a0National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture.<\/p>\n