Colour and texture

Hi, Could anyone please explain to me the relationship between the current colour and its effects on textures? I know that to make a texture look right it must be set to white, but how do I use this more effectively. In particular, a text system i''ve written that uses textured quads uses the current colour to change the colour of the text (the texture is white) - but I can''t draw black text Can anyone help me with this? thanks -mike