Let’s Talk About Yellow!

February calls for yellow.

Not in a loud way, and not as a declaration of optimism for optimism’s sake. Yellow shows up for me this time of year because February can feel heavy and drawn out. The days are still short, the cold lingers, and everything can start to feel muted. Yellow cuts through that. It doesn’t erase the gray, but it interrupts it. It brings light into a season that can easily slip into dullness.

This year, yellow felt especially right to sit with during Black History Month. A month that asks us to remember not only struggle, but brilliance, continuity, and the ways Black people have always cultivated light under pressure. Yellow, historically, has never been a frivolous color. It has been tied to power, knowledge, divinity, and what is meant to endure.

Across cultures and throughout history, yellow has carried meaning far deeper than “cheerful.” Like red, it is an ancient color—one that humans worked deliberately to extract from the earth. Yellow pigments, often derived from minerals and clays, were used to emphasize what mattered most. They were not background colors. They were focal points.

In Ancient Kemet, yellow was closely associated with gold and the sun, both symbols of eternity and divine presence. Gold was believed to be the flesh of the gods—imperishable, untarnished, lasting beyond time. Yellow and gold were used to depict what was sacred and enduring, signaling that some things were not meant to decay or disappear. Yellow was not casual; it was eternal.

That reverence for yellow appears across Africa in different forms. In West African traditions, yellow and gold are often associated with wealth, fertility, beauty, and spiritual authority. In Ghanaian kente cloth, yellow symbolizes preciousness and value—not just material wealth, but what is honored and protected within a community. Yellow is tied to harvest, nourishment, and the sun as a life-giving force. It marks seasons of growth and preparation, not excess.

This matters, especially during Black History Month, because it reminds us that Black relationships to color, symbolism, and meaning did not originate in Western fashion cycles. They are older, deeper, and rooted in systems of knowledge that understood color as language.

Yellow has also been a regulated color historically. In imperial China, specific shades of yellow were reserved exclusively for the emperor, used as a visible marker of authority and sovereignty. To wear yellow without permission was a violation of order. Visibility itself was controlled. Brightness was power, and power was guarded.

That history lingers in how brightness is still treated today. Yellow can be dismissed as unserious or attention-seeking, especially when worn boldly by people who are already scrutinized. There is discomfort with light that isn’t managed, joy that isn’t sanctioned, visibility that isn’t earned through suffering.

For Black women in particular, choosing yellow can feel like pushing back against the expectation to remain muted, restrained, or perpetually “appropriate.” Yellow is not armor. It’s exposure. And exposure, when chosen intentionally, becomes a form of agency.

For me, yellow shows up most clearly in clothing—especially in February. A yellow sweater, a coat, a scarf, a dress. Something that lifts the mood of a day that might otherwise feel dull. Yellow in clothing changes how I move through space. It brightens dreary days without demanding explanation. I’ll add accessories too—bags, earrings, sunglasses—small but intentional touches of light. When it shows up in beauty, it’s warm and grounded: golden nails, honey tones, something sun-touched rather than sharp.

Yellow, in this season, is less about standing out and more about staying awake. It’s about clarity. Discernment. Choosing to see and be seen without shrinking.

This Color of the Month series is not about trends or palettes. It’s about attention. About asking why certain colors call to us at certain moments, and what those calls might be asking us to remember. In February, during Black History Month, yellow becomes a reminder that light has always been part of our story—not borrowed, not diluted, but carried forward.

February doesn’t ask for urgency. It asks for awareness. It asks us to notice where light is returning and to meet it intentionally.

That’s why yellow belongs here.