In Response to the Trayvon Martin Tragedy and the Culture of Violence in Our Community

FOR ADULTS

Speech, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speech, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July” by Frederick Douglass

Photo-Journalism, “Without Sanctuary (Historic Photographs of Lynchings in America) by James Allen

Book, “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander
Book, “No Death by Unknown Hands” by Minnette Coleman 
Book, “Speak Now Against the Day” by John Egerton
Book, “Night Riders in Black Folk History” by Gladys-Marie Fry
Book, “Talk That Talk” by Linda Goss and Marian E. Barnes
Book, “Jump up and Say” by Linda and Clay Goss
Book, “Sayin’ Somethin” by Linda Goss, Dylan Pritchett, and Caroliese Frink Reed
Book, “The Chicago Race Riot: July 1919” by Carl Sandburg
Book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot
Book, “Medical Apartheid” by Harriet Washington

There are colors in the rainbow.
Colors down in the sea.   
Red orange is the sunset.
But what is the color of my soul?

Blues is a violet.
Blues is the sky.   
I see color in the mountains.
But what is the color of my soul?

We have hang-ups about skin tones.
Hang-ups about each other’s hair.
Pandas and zebras are two-tone.
Do you think they care?      

Green is the Grass.
Brown is the earth.
I am living color
Love is the color of my soul.

Our eyes are many colors.
Brown-eyed, blue-eyed, green
It's not how they look.
It's what our eyes have seen.

Turquoise is blue green.
Mother-of-pearl is yellowish white.
I embody all colors.
'Cause Love is the color of my soul.

Linda Goss © 2013

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE (Ages 10 and Up)

Poem, “Colors” by NABS Co-founder Mother Mary Carter Smith
Poem, “The Color of My Soul” by NABS Co-founder Mama Linda Goss
Book, “Out of My Mind” by Sharon M. Draper
Book, “The Bully Book” by Eric Kahn Gale
Book, “Peace” by Wendy Anderson Halperin
Anthology, “Peace Tales” Margaret MacDonald
Anthology, “African Myths and Folktales” by Carter G. Woodson
Magazine, “The Teaching Tolerance Magazine” produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center,
                   Montgomery, AL,  Morris Dees, Founder

Color words don't bother me
Cause what I hear I do not see
Chinese are not yellow
An Indian is not red
If you think a white child looks like snow
Something's wrong with your head
I am not black like leather
Black's just a word that stands for me
People come in all colors
So color words don't bother me

© 1988  Mary Carter Smith