Audio:United Colors

"When you think of all of the salient issues that differentiate people, skin color does not always come to the top," says The Color Initiative's Phillip Martin, "but it's one of the great differentiators - and not necessarily dividers - in the world."

In part one of his breakthrough exploration of the complexities and nuances of human skin color, Martin reports on how Italian clothier Benetton has employed the myriad shades of melanin to build a name for itself across the globe.

Martin recently garnered an Asian American Journalists Association award for the series, which you can find in its entirety here. And when he's not racing around the world in pursuit of a story, Martin also blogs for The Huffington Post.