In my life, I have found myself as a colored, a negro, a Black, an African American, and a person of color. This is my reflection as a colored girl.
“I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong the sobbing school of
Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and those feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world. I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”
That is from Zora Neale Hurston, one of my favorite authors. And it is her philosophy about race, being “colored,” to which I adhere.
There have been many books written about the horrors of being “colored,” especially during the Jim Crow era. However, much less has been written about the agency of the colored, not only to survive but to thrive despite the barriers.
My “Reflections of a Colored Girl” are meant to offer a different narrative. One that, yes, describes the segregation and discrimination this colored girl experienced. But more importantly, one that describes the beliefs, the values, and the actions of my family, school, and community that inspired, challenged, and expected me to be the human being that I became.
Like Zora, “I am not tragically colored.”
And I am not alone. During Jim Crow, the colored developed exceptional institutions of learning, created great works of art and music, and established over 200 vibrant colored business districts like Tulsa, Oklahoma and Durham, North Carolina.
It was during Jim Crow that the mythology of white superiority and black inferiority was solidly refuted. We colored used our spiritual power to understand our African traditions and to rise above the psychological needs of white America to dehumanize and control us. We are not and have never been the stereotypical image in the conditioned white mind.
As you hear my stories or read the essays, you might be surprised that they reflect the life of one who grew up “colored.”
This is my life story from birth to now my late 70s.
These are my reflections of a colored girl.
Listen to WGCU's Gulf Coast Life episode to hear how this series came about with Dr. Bireda.
Read full essays by Dr. Martha Bireda at Meer.
"In my life, I have found myself as a colored, a negro, a Black, an African American, and a person of color. This is my reflection as a colored girl." This phrase opens each essay in the series “Reflections of a Colored Girl” from Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D. being aired on WGCU FM. Dr. Bireda is a writer, lecturer, and living history performer with over 30 years' experience as a lecturer, consultant and trainer for issues related to race, class, and gender, working with educators, law enforcement, and business, and civic leaders. She also is director of the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County, in Punta Gorda, Florida. Bireda was born in Southwest Florida in 1945 but spent the first 10 years of her life in a small town in Western Virginia. Her family then moved back to Punta Gorda, where they have deep roots. This is one essay in her series.
