White Text on Color Background

Whenever I create a module of any kind with a color background, I get a block of white around any text I write in that module/row. I have triple checked my CSS and there is nothing there that should cause this. Even popup boxes (do you want to save page, etc.) have a white box overlaying text in the heading. I can use a white background with colored text just fine, but I can't do the opposite. I've attached a photo to show an example--I've changed the background color of every module/row associated with this text.

Thanks for any help.