NEW YORK, July 26 (UPI) -- Michigan officials asked a New York auction house to sell a collection of personal items that belonged to African-American civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

Thousands of Parks's belongings could sell for as much as $10 million at Guernsey's auction house, Religion News Service reported.

Profits from the sale will be distributed to a Detroit institute named for Parks and her relatives, the news service said.

It is reported the collection is made up of Parks's clothing, notes, awards and many other personal belongings the civil rights activist held onto before she died in 2005.

Historians have said the collection allows people to understand Parks from a more personal point of view.

"You do see her as a full human being. Not just the woman on the bus, not just the seamstress, but everything," said Carolyn Salter, Guernsey's senior archivist.