I can't get the text colour to change

I put the colour code in to the CSS style sheet in version PunBB, but it changes the text colour to one I don't want. Why does it do that? I've been messing about with it all night trying to get the look I want, but it's determined to have either pale green or pale grey text for the topic headers, and I don't want that because it doesn't show up very well. Is there any way to get it so that all the topics show up and the text is legible?

I can do it on myfreeforums.com, without the headaches.