The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Several topics really stood out this week, including the Oscars as social advocacy inspiration, civil rights and Black History Month, and lots of hot news on entertainment going Green. Check out our most popular posts of the week on these subjects, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

Happy Belated “Freedom to Marry” Week!

Rosa and Raymond Parks: Valiant Valentine #5

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Nicole:

Top 10 Oscar Picks to Inspire Social Action

Cornel West: Black Thoughts On Black History Month

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Giulia:

H&M’s “Fashion Against AIDS”

Ed Begley Jr. Goes Green

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Gina:

Top 10 Best Picture Winners That Inspire

Remixing “Chicago 10″

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Kerry:

How To Set the World On Fire Without Burning Out

Eco-Brokers Cater to Green Homebuyers

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.

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Robert Capa & Gerda Taro join Susan Sarandon & Tim Robbins, Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, and Lucie & Raymond
Aubrac, in receiving one of my Valiant Valentines Awards for couples who love each other and the world, and work with each other to change the world. Robert Capa, one of the most famous, if not the most famous, war photographers of the last century, is best known for his photo Falling Soldier, which captures a shot soldier falling to his death during the Spanish Civil War. Gerda Taro, the less known photojournalist, is best known for being Capa’s artistic and romantic partner, not for her exceptional bravery and photography. The two brilliant photographers shared much in common: born Andre Friedmann, Capa, who was Jewish, fled the antisemitism of Hungary and went to Paris; born Gerda Pohorylle, the Jewish Taro escaped Germany’s antisemitism and moved to Paris, where she would meet Capa. They began collaborating artistically and Robert Capa was the name they created to sign their shared work. It was their shared love of freedom which brought the two to Spain, where they would document the Civil War– the bombed cities, the deaths and destruction– in the hopes of gathering support and raising awareness of the anti-Fascist cause and of the rising fascism, which they had known so well. Sharing a love for each other as well, they would photograph not just the war, but each other.

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