Rosa Parks' Detroit Home Moved To Germany
Rosa Parks' niece Rhea McCauley stand in front of Parks' Detroit home. Photo by Markus Schreiber via AP Photo
Rosa Parks' niece Rhea McCauley stand in front of Parks' Detroit home. Photo by Markus Schreiber via AP Photo
Rosa Parks' Detroit home has been relocated to Berlin, Germany.
Parks' niece Rhea McCauley, along with artist Ryan Mendoza, moved the iconic civil rights activist's Detroit home to Berlin after authorities planned to demolish it in an effort to clean up the city.
McCauley purchased the home for $500 to stop its demolition and then donated it to Mendoza. The two of them, along with multiple volunteers, took the house apart, put the pieces into containers and shipped them to Berlin during the summer of last year.
From there Mendoza rebuilt the home in six months.
"It is something that is precious," McCauley said to The Associated Press. "And it is priceless. And yet it is being mistreated. That's what I saw. And that's how it felt. And so when I met Ryan and he said, 'Let's bring it to Berlin and restore it,' I said yes."
"It would be a difficult thing to do if you didn't want to do it," Mendoza added. "But I wanted to do it so much that it was a joy. Each day when I saw something completed at the project was a day that I had fulfilled something wonderful in my life."
The house will be shown to the public however, visitors will not be able to go inside of it. As for the future of Parks' home, Mendoza hopes to sell it to an art institution and donate all of the profits to the Rosa Parks Family Foundation.
A couple of months ago came the passing of Mike Illitch, the owner of Little Caesars who had helped move Parks into a new apartment after her house was broken into.
Illitch, along with other Detroit residents, helped move Parks into a new apartment. But Illitch did not just stop there — he also paid her rent up until her death in 2005.
"It's important that people know what Mr. Mike Ilitch did for Ms. Rosa Parks because it's symbolic of what he has always done for the people of our city," judge Damon Keithsaid in an interview with the Sports Business Journal. "Mike Ilitch is totally committed to Detroit," Keith continued. "He brought the Little Caesars corporate offices here. He saved the Fox Theatre. He built Comerica Park, and he kept the hockey and baseball teams thriving here when times were tough. But of all the incredible things he has done for the city, people should know what he did for Rosa Parks."
