Thieves damage civil rights icon Rosa Parks’ former Alabama home --- (Reuters) - Alabama police are seeking help in catching thieves who ransacked a Montgomery apartment building where black civil rights activist Rosa Parks lived when she was famously arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955. -- The vandals damaged some items in Parks' onetime home, which serves as a small museum and is on the National Register of Historic Places, in their hunt for copper pipes and tubing, authorities said. -- The apartment was hit in "a random act of vandalism," Montgomery police Sergeant Denise Barnes said. The incident was reported to police on Monday. -- Targeted or not, “it is a travesty that someone could disrespect the dignity and honor of Mrs. Parks by causing immeasurable damage to her home," said Montgomery Housing Authority Executive Director Evette Hester. -- Thieves tore apart walls and plaster while stripping copper pipes from the Cleveland Court complex, which was vacant due to renovations aimed in part at turning Parks' apartment into a more expansive museum. -- Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and considered a key early development in the modern U.S. civil rights movement. -- Her apartment is furnished with period replicas that were only mildly damaged, according to Hester, who said the museum plans would press ahead. -- Parks lived in the apartment with her husband and her mother from 1951 to 1957. She died in 2005 at the age of 92. -- No arrests have been made in connection with the incident. - More, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/27/us-usa-alabama-parks-idUSKBN0GR1W720140827