I don't know if you are like me, but I prefer darker themes.
But with Ubuntu no UI interffface is present be default to change the color of the font in Gnome panels. Here the simple way I found.
- Open a terminal and type:            sudo gedit .gtkrc-2.0 
 
- Then a empty file will open so copy-paste this code: 
 
 include "/home/autocrosser/.gnome2/panel-fontrc"style "desktop-icon" 
 {
 NautilusIconContainer::frame_text = 1
 text[NORMAL] = "#000000"
 NautilusIconContainer::normal_alpha = 70
 }
 class "GtkWidget" style "desktop-icon"
 #NautilusIconContainer::dark_info_color="#888888"
 #NautilusIconContainer::light_info_color="#bbbbbb"
 #NautilusIconContainer::highlight_alpha=20
 style "panel"
 {
 fg[NORMAL] = "#ffffff"
 # fg[PRELIGHT] = "#000000″
 # fg[ACTIVE] = "#000000"
 # fg[SELECTED] = "#000000″
 # fg[INSENSITIVE] = "#8A857C"
 # bg[NORMAL] = "#000000″
 # bg[PRELIGHT] = "#dfdfdf"
 # bg[ACTIVE] = "#D0D0D0″
 # bg[SELECTED] = "#D8BB75″
 # bg[INSENSITIVE] = "#EFEFEF"
 # base[NORMAL] = "#ffffff"
 # base[PRELIGHT] = "#EFEFEF"
 # base[ACTIVE] = "#D0D0D0″
 # base[SELECTED] = "#DAB566″
 # base[INSENSITIVE] = "#E8E8E8″
 # text[NORMAL] = "#161616″
 # text[PRELIGHT] = "#000000″
 # text[ACTIVE] = "#000000″
 # text[SELECTED] = "#ffffff"
 # text[INSENSITIVE] = "#8A857C"
 }
 widget "*PanelWidget*" style "panel"
 widget "*PanelApplet*" style "panel"
 class "*Panel*" style "panel"
 widget_class "*Mail*" style "panel"
 class "*notif*" style "panel"
 class "*Notif*" style "panel"
 class "*Tray*" style "panel"
 class "*tray*" style "panel"
 That time I change the color code of: fg[NORMAL] = "#FFFFFF". You can change this fffor any color by using the #RRGGBB equivalent code. 
 
- Save. Close the editor. Re-log and Enjoy!
If you dont know the code for the color you want you can go here, Or you can use gcolor2. To install it type in a terminal
sudo apt-get install gcolor2
And when you are done, type: gcolor2 and voila!
I hope this little trick will make it eiser for you!
Franky
