Parks Estate Undercuts EBay Hustlers

Trustees of the estate of late civil rights pioneer are upset that the 14-page programs from her Detroit funeral are selling for more than $150 on eBay. "People are exploiting it," Adam Shakoor, one of two trustees appointed in 1998 to handle Mrs. Park's affairs told the Detroit Free Press. "We are very concerned about that." Mr. Shakoor said some are cashing in on Mrs. Park's historic life by peddling a funeral keepsake, so the estate plans to print thousands more of the photograph-filled programs and sell the memorial printing for $5 to $10. Any profit would go to the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. The funeral program included pictures of Parks being arrested in 1955 for refusing to give her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., bus. The eBay seller, who purported to be from a suburb of Detroit, did not respond to e-mails. But in an e-mail yesterday to the Detroit Free Press, one of the bidders wrote that he didn’t mean harm. Benjamin Henning, a buyer, said that he wanted “this piece of history to be … in my personal collection to remind me daily of what Ms. Parks did for all of us.”