In my life, I have been a colored, a Negro, a black, an African American, and a person of the global majority.

This is my reflection as a colored girl.

Powerful colored women.

For all my sins, God denies me to heaven.

On judgment day, mama, won't you cry?

During the Jim Crow years, white society often portrayed colored girls like me as an exotic temptress, A likely unwed teenage mother, as unintelligent we are come here to wish you many happy, happy- returns.

Or fit only to be the help for white women in their homes.

However, it was in the community that surrounded me where we learned our true identities as colored women, teachers, church leaders, and volunteers.

Neighbors taught us etiquette to respect our elders and helped develop our morals and our character.

And my training to become a powerful colored woman began at home, starting with my grandmother, Martha Andrews.

She had a saying “that doesn't mean us”.

Which meant that while we had to obey Jim Crow laws, we were never to surrender our dignity by going to the back of a restaurant or shopping where we were not respected.

Granny taught me I could achieve anything in life that I wanted because she did.

She had a family and lived a very prosperous life.

She attended night school and got a mail order certificate for private duty nursing, and in her elder years she went to the Holy Land.

My grandmother also held to our cultural traditions of tending to our entire community.

She built a house and cared for an elder without a family, and she was one of the three people who formed the first NAACP in our hometown.

My mother also taught me to respect my worth and the value of giving back.

Proud of her colored heritage and history in Punta Gorda.

Bernice Russell was a visionary for the black House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County.

She was a leader in both colored and white civic organizations, and because she was an activist and humanitarian.

My mother was awarded the Rotary Service Above Self Award.

Her bigger than life image can be seen on a mural of seven important women in Charlotte County.

My Aunt Ruth was a home economics teacher for 40 years.

She inspired girls to be a model of colored womanhood in the family and community.

She preached the message, how will you serve?

you have any idea what you want to be when you grow up?

I like to be a teacher.

A nurse.

These powerful lessons of self-identity, self-worth, and self-determination by the women in my family have been passed on to my daughter, Saba.

She graduated from both Stanford and Harvard Law Schools.

Through her law practice, Saba is committed to securing fair and equal rights for everyone.

Like her great grandmother, aunt and grandmother and even me.

Saba has joined a long list of powerful women Funding for this program was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities, with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities.