I wrote the song What Color Am I back in 1993, as I sat in my sparsely furnished apartment in Nashville, Tennessee. I had just watched Geraldo Rivera get his nose broke on national TV by a Neo-Nazi, skinhead, who threw a chair during a heated exchange with another guest. I turned off the TV and the full song came in less than thirty minutes. I have always felt it was divinely inspired and I was just lucky enough to be the one who was chosen to write it down.

Back in the day, as they say… you could perform your new songs at various writer’s nights around town, and this song was what landed me my first publishing gig as a staff writer. The song became my “signature song”, and even after twenty something years I still have old friends tell stories of when they first heard me sing it.

In 1994, I was informed by my friend Dalena Ditto that the Denny’s Restaurant company wanted to use the song as the basis for their training video on non-discrimination. The back-story (as I remember it) is she had been singing the song during her cruise-ship gig, and the person responsible for creating the training video just happen to catch her show. They used the title of What Color AM I as the title of the video and built the entire content around each verse. As they were recording the song, I got a call asking if I could write a Hispanic verse. I hung up the phone, sat at my desk at work, and was once again divinely inspired. I called them back within 15 minutes with the additional lyric, and I remember them being stunned that I could come up with a new verse so quickly. Another indication, to me, that I was just the note taker – something or someone else was using me to present the message.

The song was eventually presented before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the landmark case of The US vs. The Denny’s Restaurant Corporation. It won a Silver Reel award, and it was used for some time as part of the corporation’s regular employee training.

You can see the legal documents at the following link:
https://www.justice.gov/crt/housing-and-civil-enforcement-cases-documents-40

Obviously, I am very proud of this accomplishment. To have something I wrote presented to the Supreme Court, especially on the topic of racial equality, has given me a sense of “having done my part” to help end racism and prejudice in the country I love.

I have to be honest and say that it breaks my heart that the message of this song is still needed. And though I believe we have made great progress with racial equality, I hope the words of this song can help heal the troubles that seem to persist – some twenty-seven years after I first wrote them.

God bless this world, and God bless the United States of America.