"Fifty Is The New Black!": Happy Valentine's Day! "It takes Two!' (Rosa & Raymond)

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Happy Valentine's Day! "It takes Two!' (Rosa & Raymond)

HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH!!!
One would be Hard-pressed to find a photo of Rosa Parks Husband Raymond Parks, much less one of their Wedding! However, I searched High & Low on the internet... Blog after blog told the Great LOve story of the two, yet Mrs Parks was always coupled with a Dark-skinned gentlemen that was indeed not her hubby.
Being ...somewhat familiar with the Parks LOve story, I was aware that Mr Parks was extremely Light-skinned with piercing Blue eyes (I so wish I could have found a photo displaying that of this Black Man.. but to No avail). I was able to scrounge up these two photos that (from what I have read) do him nor his Eyes any justice!
It has also been said that this is the reason Mr Parks was kept out of the Public's eye and Rarely photographed, due to the assumption that he was a white Man and that the Civil Rights movement did Not Need suvh a Distraction!
Anywho, How Rosa and Raymond Met:
When Rosa was nineteen, and Raymond was 29, they met through a mutual friend. Raymond was an immaculate dresser and considered to be very handsome and charming.
Chapter 4 of her memoir is titled “Marriage, and Activism”. In her telling, Rosa Parks’ political activism did not diminish, but grew because of her marriage.
“I first met Raymond Parks when a mutual friend, a lady I knew very well, introduced us….When he saw me, he wanted to come and call on me, but I thought he was too white. I had an aversion to white men, with the exception of my grandfather, and Raymond Parks was very light skinned. He was in his late twenties and working as a barber in a black barbershop in downtown Montgomery owned by Mr. O. L. Campbell. I was in my late teens. I knew he was interested in my, but I just spoke politely to him and didn’t give him another thought.”
But Raymond Parks persisted, and in the spring of 1931 he and Rosa McCauley started seeing each other. They were married in her mother’s house in December 1932, settled in Montgomery, and the next year Rosa got her high school diploma after returning to school with Raymond’s encouragement.
“He was the first man of our race, aside from my grandfather, with whom I actually discussed anything about the racial conditions. And he was the first, aside from my grandfather and Mr. Gus Vaughn, who was never actually afraid of white people….”
Religion: Rosa and Raymond were members of the African Methodist Episcopal church (AME) and in 1964, Rosa became a deaconess.
Education:
Rosa attended Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, Booker T. Washington High School, and Alabama State College. With the support of Raymond, Rosa went back to school in 1933 and obtained her high-school diploma.
Although Raymond did not have a formal education, he did hunger for knowledge. Self taught, he had a thorough knowledge of domestic affairs and current events. Many people thought he was college educated. He spent his life encouraging others to get an education.
Rosa Parks and her husband suffered the usual punishments for black protest: hate calls, death threats and loss of employment. Eight months after the boycott’s successful end, the impoverished Parks family fled Montgomery for Detroit. They remained economically insecure until Parks finally found steady employment in 1965, working in Representative John Conyers Jr.’s Detroit office until her retirement in 1988. Only in the late 1970s did Parks’s obscurity lift with her recognition as a national figure of historical import.
* When Rosa and Raymond Died:
Raymond Parks died in Detroit, Michigan, on August, 19, 1977, after a five year battle with cancer.
Rosa Parks died on October 24, 2005 at her home on the east side of Detroit while she was taking a nap. Rosa had suffered from dementia for several years. She lived in the Riverfront Apartments complex that overlooked the Detroit River and the border with Ontario, Canada. (May their Souls & LOve Continue to Rest in the Awesome Power of Peace!)
Rosa Parks made history again on Sunday, October 30, 2005, when she became the first woman to lie in honor, 180 feet below the Capitol dome, in the ornate Rotunda. She was also the second black person to receive this honor.

ref: http://worldhistoryproject.org/1932/12/18/rosa-parks-marries-raymond-parks
ref: https://masscommons.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/rosa-parks-story-ours-part-7/
#HBHM #HVD #happyvalentinesday #love
#rosaParks #BlackHIstoryMonth #blackhistory #civilrights

Happy Valentine's Day! "It takes Two!' (Rosa & Raymond) by enjoyzworld on Polyvore