Rosa Parks and Raymond Parks Shared a Love For Each Other and For Civil Rights. And as Valentine’s Week comes to an end, they are the final recipients of my Valiant Valentines Award (VVA) (joining Tim Robbins & Susan Sarandon, Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, Lucie & Raymond Aubrac, and Robert Capa & Gerda Taro) which honors couples who loved together and worked together to make the world a better place.

When Rosa met her husband in Montgomery, Alabama, Raymond, a 29-year-old barber, was active in the NAACP and the campaign to free the Scottsboro Boys, 9 young black men who had been convicted (8 of whom were sentenced to die in the electric chair) for raping two white women, despite no real evidence. As a couple, they became even more involved in civil rights and Rosa became the secretary and later youth leader of the local NAACP branch. Raymond, whose education was limited by segregation, had educated himself and encouraged and supported Rosa to pursue her education. And in1934, two years after their marriage, Rosa got the high school degree she couldn’t get earlier because her mother’s illness forced her to quit school. Rosa said that Raymond was the first person she met “who was never actually afraid of white people…. Parks believed in being a man and expected to be treated as a man.” After struggling with cancer, Raymond died in 1977 at the age of 74. Rosa established The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development to honor his “contribution to civil rights, voting rights and his life time devotion to her in her activism and commitment to improve the lives of children.”

Rosa & Raymond Parks inspired the USA movie The Rosa Parks Story (see video above), starring Angela Bassett, Cicely Tyson and Peter Francis James, directed by Julie Dash, as well as countless books, children’s books, songs, like Outkast’s Rosa Parks, albums, teaching guides, exhibits, museums, and documentaries. And if it inspires you to protect voters’ rights, equal rights and civil rights then ! Check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) e-petition, urging Congress to pass Rep. Rush Holt’s Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, which will increase accuracy, transparency and accountability in the voting process.