The Birmingham Times
Rosa Parks became one of the faces of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s after her actions helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott. But Rosa once described her husband Raymond as “the first real activist I ever met” and credited him with inspiring her own work in the fight for justice.
Raymond Parks was born in Wedowee, Alabama, in 1903, the son of David, a carpenter, and Geri Culbertson Parks. He spent his childhood caring for ill family members and was orphaned as a teen. Though he never received a formal education, he taught himself to read and worked as a barber…