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.

The value of community.

In the Jim Crow South, colored people were segregated and discriminated against.

We were the other.

But we as a community didn't see it that way.

Community in my colored culture was not just a physical location, but a consciousness of “we” versus “I”.

There was a sense of interdependence.

Sharing and cooperating were essential to our community.

Growing up in my Gulf Coast community, no one went hungry or homeless.

People fished and planted gardens and shared what they grew.

We could pick oranges, lemons, limes and guavas right from the tree.

Every week, our segregated, all colored community found ways to express tremendous joy.

From baseball games and fish fries on Saturday, to church plays and gospel singing on Sunday.

As children, We were the hope for our community.

Every adult was responsible for the development of our character.

They had the authority and the duty to reprimand us for bad behavior.

We were expected to use our gifts and talents to give back and uplift our colored brothers and sisters.

Even though prejudices surrounded us daily, it wasn't until I went to college that I learned that my community was considered culturally deprived.

One particular shocking study, said my community lacked certain values, skills and attitudes to function in society.

That study was based upon mythology and ignorance of our cultural differences.

I know this because the dynamic Negro community made it possible for us, for me, to develop a resilience to combat those myths and differences.

Our resilience comes from our spirituality, our hopes and joys, our traditions and our belief as a community that “I am” because “we are”.

And after 75 years, this cultural resilience has led me to embrace my true ethnic identity.

An identity That includes 85% of the entire world I am a person of the global majority, and my community comes from the ancient and rich heritages that have contributed to world civilization since the beginning.

This is my community.

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