Rosa Parks House in Berlin Has a Ticket Home to America
In a backyard in Berlin, a ramshackle house that was once a haven for the civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks is preparing for its third life — back in the United States.
It had almost been lost to history, falling into blight, abuse and foreclosure, in Detroit. But in 2016, the American artist Ryan Mendozashipped the dismantled facade in two containers to his home in Germany.
There, it was restored as an art exhibit in his garden in the Wedding neighborhood. Then the strange and itinerant journey of the wood-frame house took another turn recently, when a member of the Nash Family Foundation, based in Manitowoc, Wis., formally agreed to pay for its passage back.