Martha Bireda, Ph.D.

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. Education had been a core value since the colored community in Punta Gorda was founded.

In my life, I have found myself as a colored, a negro, a Black, an African American, and a person of color. This story is my reflection as a colored girl. My mother, Bernice Andrews Russell is memorialized on a mural in Punta Gorda. She was my example of the colored woman that a colored girl like me must aspire to be.

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.

In my life, I have found myself as a colored, a negro, a Black, an African American, and a person of color. This story is my reflection as a colored girl.My father, Alonzo Clifton Russell, is my hero. He quietly resisted the Jim Crow requirement of accepting a subservient consciousness.

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. The murder and mutilation of Emmett Till traumatized a young Martha in 1955.

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. The predominantly colored community in Punta Gorda was more than a place, it was alive with a consciousness of a shared culture.

"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." Dr. Bireda shares her story of being born at a time when life for "colored" people was not of royalty but of restriction. Even being nicknamed the "May Queen" by a cousin couldn't prevent her experiencing the barriers presented by Jim Crow laws.

"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 heard on WGCU FM from Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D. Dr. Bireda is a writer, lecturer, and living history performer with over 30 years of 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. Bireda also is the Director of the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County, located in Punta Gorda, Florida. The audio series, "Reflections of a Colored Girl," will be featured weekly on WGCU FM for the next five months. This is the first.