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.

I am not tragically colored.

Author Zora Neale Hurston once wrote, “I am not tragically colored”.

Hurston, like me, didn't believe that we colored people were downtrodden and culturally deprived.

Even during the Jim Crow era, a time filled with division, segregation, and hate.

The most empowering lessons I learned about my life and future were when I was labeled a colored girl.

As children, we learned four lessons to know our true identity.

Denial, Affirmation, protection and character building.

The lessons of denial taught us that we were not who white society believed we were, and we knew that we were not inferior in any way.

Affirmations confirmed that we were precious gifts to our family and community.

We were born with unique gifts and talents to fulfill our life's purpose and better our community.

A third and crucial lesson as a colored child was to protect myself during Jim Crow.

Considered second class citizens, we obeyed segregate laws, separate drinking fountains, bathrooms, hospitals and pools.

But there was also an informal etiquette where we had to act like we were less than White people.

Like stepping off a sidewalk to let a white person pass.

It was the fourth lesson that colored children were expected to develop to the highest extent.

Character building That began at home, where we learned the generational and cultural values to respect ourselves, respect our family and respect the elderly.

Unfortunately, that kind of respect was not given outside of my community.

I learned that lesson when I was just 13.

My mother always proud of her daughter, told some white women that I had completed a typing course.

One woman asked if I could come do some typing for her.

When I arrived at her house instead of a typewriter She guided me to a bucket to wash windows.

I was shocked.

I called my mother, who immediately came to pick me up.

I left without saying a word.

While my mother was angry, I felt pity for this white woman who was so insecure of her place in society that she was threatened by a child learning a skill.

These life lessons and the lesson of self-determination from my grandmother and self-worth from my mother fueled my determination to rise above these lowered expectations of me in the greater society.

Instead, I went to college, and I became who I was destined to become a mother, an educator, a writer, a performer, a witness to history, and a person of a global majority.

So, as you can see, like Zora Neale Hurston, I am not tragically colored.

Funding for this program was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities, with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities.