A column examines an essay written by Rosa Parks detailing an attempted rape by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper in 1931. The six-page document, is among thousands of her personal items currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and offices of Guernsey\'s Auctioneers, which has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive. Wayne State University professor and civil rights historian Danielle McGuire said she had never before heard of the attempted rape of Parks and called the find astounding. It helps explain what triggered Parks\' lifelong campaign against the ritualistic rape of black women by white men, said McGuire, author of \"At the Dark End of the Street\" which examines how economic intimidation and sexual violence were used to derail the freedom movement and how it went unpunished during the Jim Crow era.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/29/rosa-parks-essay-rape_n_912997.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/29/national/main20085314.shtml
http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/126387893.html