top of page
pink Watercolor Abstract Phone Wallpaper_edited_edited.jpg
In Response to Trayvon Martin

​
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

​​

Screenshot 2025-05-28 at 9.00.01 AM.png

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

Alexa Young, CA

​​

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​​

Screenshot 2025-05-28 at 9.06.46 AM.png

Color words don't bother me

Cause what I hear I do not see

Chinese are not yellow

An Indian is not redIf you think a white child looks like snow

Something's wrong with your headI am not black like leather

Black's just a word that stands for me

People come in all colorsSo color words don't bother me

© 1988  Mary Carter Smith

The Authentic Voice of Blackstorytelling
National Association of Black Storytellers, Inc.

(410) 947-1117
a 501(c)(3) organization Co-Founded by Mother Mary Carter Smith and Mama Linda Goss - P.O. Box 67722, Baltimore, MD 21215

​​​©2025 National Association of Black Storytellers. Original website designed by Be Light Media LLC. Revised and Managed by NABS Inc.

bottom of page