changing the colors on secondary menu

I have been trying to change the hover color & background on the links in the secondary menu, but I can get it.
I can change the font size, but nothing else is working for me.

The size change works fine the font is 12px
The background color is also working, which is White
The font color remains white when it should be red, I used the code ff0000 & also the word red
Here’s my code

.sub_menu>ul>li>a, .sub_menu>div>ul>li>
a {
font-size: 12px;
}
.header_color .sub_menu > ul > li > a:hover, a:active {
    background-color: white;
    color: red;
}